FEIN  SKETCHES 

THE     HOUNDS      OF     BANS  A.        By 
Daniel  Corkery.     B.   W.  Heubsch. 

THE  old  idea  (at  least,  it  is  sev- 
eral years  old)  that  the  Irish 
literary  movement  has  come  to 
a  halt,  that  it  is  even  less  than 
marking  time  and  suffering  a  retro- 
gression, that  no  new  figures  of  im- 
portance to  compare  with  the 
pioneers  of  the  renascence  have 
arisen,  is  hardly  borne  out  upon  con- 
sideration. It  is  true  that  the 
poetic  drama  written  in  Ireland  to- 
day may  not  compare  with  that  of 
the  opening  years  of  William  Butler 
Yeats,  Edward  Martyn  and  their 
comrades,  but  in  the  novel  form  it 
may  confidently  be  asserted  that 
Ireland  is  still  (and  likely  to  remain 
so)  a  potent  force.  One  has  but  to 
think  of  James  Joyce,  Lennox  Rob- 
inson, Brinsley  MacNamara  and 
Daniel  Corkery.  Corkery  is,  if  we 
except  MacNamara,  the  most  prom- 
ising of  the  younger  men,  and  he  is 
dramatist,  poet  and  prose  writer  in  j 
turn.  His  first  book  to  be  pub-  | 
lished  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic 
Ocean,  "  The  Hounds  of  Banba,"  is 
a  collection  of  nine  sketches  (or 
short  stories,  as  one  chooses  to  call 
them)  that  will  well  repay  reading, 
and  for  several  reasons. 
It  is  a  book  that  has  been  written 


by  a  man  of  inflamed  patriotic  pas- 
sions, and  as  such  it  should  grip 
the  reader  mightily.  Corkery  is  a 
careful  and  distinguished  handler  of 
prose,  and  each  one  of  the  nine 
sketches  in  this  book  are  impreg- 
nated with  a  subtle  .poetic  atmos- 
phere that  lifts  them  from  the 
merely  clever.  They  are  all  sketches 
of  Sinn  Fein  activities,  of  men 
venturing  all  for  their  country,  and 
they  are  indubitably  written  by  a 
man  whose  whole  sympathies  go  out 
to  these  men,  hunted  by  day  and 
night,  who  fought  so  savagely  and 
secretly  for  a  free  Ireland  during  the 
guerrilla  warfare  that  followed  Eas- 
ter Week  in  Dublin,  1910,  and  which 
was  at  its  fiercest  during  those 
bloody  and  terrible  months  before 
the  Irish  Free  State  pact  was  signed 
in  .London. 

Two  types  in  these  sketches  will 
stand  out  in  the  mind  of  the  reader, 
and  he  does  not  necessarily  have  to 
be  an  Irish  sympathizer  to  feel  the 
utmost  admiration  for  them.  There 
is  the  type  of  the  old  Fenian,  the 
man  who  has  fought  and  conspired 
in  the  past  for  a  free  Ireland  and 
gone  down  to  defeat  with  his  ideals 
unimpaired  and  the  dream  still 
bright  before  his  eyes.  Such  a  man 
is  old  Muirish  in  the  sketch  called 
"  The  Ember."  To  this  old  fighter 
comes  the  writer  of  the  sketch  flee- 
ing from  the  English  after  Easter 
Week,  and  it  is  from  the  hands  of. 
this  old  lion  that  the  writer  receives 
the  little  bag  of  money  which  had 
been  saved  for  fifty  years.  It  is 
Fenian  gold,  money  that  had  been 
collected  years  before.  Old  Muirish 
says: 

'Tis  queer  *  *  *  but  'tis 
often  I  found  myself  speaking  to 
that  little  bag  of  gold  the  same 
as  if  it  would  be  a  Christian  man. 
"  Ye're  useless,"  I'd  say  to  it,  "I 
may  as  well  throw  ye  into  the 
river.  If  T  hand  ye  over  +"  **"> 


THE  HOUNDS  OF  BANBA 


Crown  8vo, 


The  Hounds  of  Banba 

R.  CORKERY  who  is  the 
acknowledged  master  of  the 
short  story  in  Ireland,  has 
fully  maintained  the  high  reputation 
gained  by  the  publication  of  "A 
Minister  Twilight."  <f  The  stories 
are  of  the  present  da}7,  dealing  with 
the  adventures  of  men  "on  the  run." 

"The  Hounds  of  Banba"  is  full  of  the  eternal 
youth  of  the  world.  Here  it  is  the  youth  that 
goes  out  to  fight  for  liberty,  and,  hunted  like  a 
hare  upon  the  mountains,  still  fights  and  still 
hopes.  Mr.  Corkery,  it  is  needless  to  say,  tells 
his  stories  with  an  extraordinary  artistic  skill 
and  technical  as  well  as  emotional  beauty.  He 
can  bring  tears  to  your  eyes  with  grief,  your 
heart  into  your  mouth  with  fear.  With  his 
fugitive  rebels  you  scramble  and  race  over  black 
hill-sides,  dodging  police,  knocking  up  sleeping 
cottagers  for  a  night's  shelter.  And  then  the 
sick  jar  of  the  climax — "I  was  caught.  .  .  .  That 
night  I  slept  in  a  lonely  cell  in  Cork  jail."  Mr. 
Corkery  has  an  extraordinary  power  of  sweeping 


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The  Hounds  of  Banba  (con.) 


the  strings  of  our  emotions  with  the  turn  of  a 
phrase.  He  has  also  an  uncanny  skill  in  con- 
veying atmosphere — the  atmosphere  of  tense, 
strung  nerves  and  reckless,  self-conscious  dare- 
devilry  in  which  the  Irish  revolutionaries  have 
been  living  for  years.  .  .  .  Mr.  Corkery  relies 
not  on  his  construction  of  plots,  but  on  his 
presentment  of  emotional  and  psychological 
atmosphere.  It  is  rather  with  group  psychology 
than  individual  psychology  that  he  mostly  deals, 
but  his  handling  of  individuals  is  as  vivid  and 
as  moving.  "The  Hounds  of  Banba"  is  essen- 
tially, like  Mr.  Corkery's  other  books,  the  work 
of  a  poet.  He  has  caught  in  it  all  the  poetry 
and  the  passion  of  revolt. — MiSS  RosK  MAC- 
AUI<AY  in  Time  and  Tide. 

I  have  read  this  book  twice,  and  still  find  myself 
searching  for  words  to  convey  an  impression  of 
it.  One  reason  for  this  impotence  is  that  a 
passage  cannot  anywhere  be  detached  to  give 
the  clue  to  it.  The  whole  is  greater  (for  what 
that  is  worth)  than  any  part.  It  is  an  unity 
lacking  something  I  know  not  what ;  a  twilight 
peopled  by  forms;  the  twilight  and  its  ghostly 
beings  with  a  certain  substance  but  not  com- 
plete. The  characters  are  by  no  means  sharply 
defined  ;  they  merge  into  atmosphere.  With 
Falstaff  now,  or  Mr.  Micawber,  or  Touchstone, 
or  a  hundred  other  creations  it  would  be  possible 


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^ 


The  Hounds 


of  Banba  (con.) 


to  recall  to  mind,  we  know  where  we  are.  These 
are  complete  ;  they  live.  But  it  is  as  if  the 
characters  of  the  stories  or  studies  under  review 
are  scarcely  yet  born.  <1T  Perhaps  it  is  a  true 
picture  of  Ireland  in  the  making  that  Mr. 
Corkery  has  painted.  He  is  an  artist,  at  any 
rate.  Nowhere  is  there  a  suggestion  of  propa- 
ganda  The  result  is  that  in  one  respect 

at  least  the  book  is  more  valuable  than  any 
Unionist  newspaper  leader  or  Freeman's  Journal 
cartoon.  It  is  the  book  to  be  studied  if  we  wish 
to  understand  Ireland  and  the  Irish  question. 
Whatever  the  rights  and  wrongs  of  that  question, 

this  is  Ireland <ff  No  doubt  but  that  Mr. 

Corkery  is  an  artist  and  "The  Hounds  of  Banba" 

a  book  of  mark In  its  own  subtle  way  it 

appeals  for  understanding,  and  for  this  reason 
alone  is  a  book  to  be  bought  and  read  and 
pondered. — Bookman' s  Journal. 
The  story  called  "On  the  Heights"  is  a  fine 
piece  of  work  ...  it  is  but  an  incident,  but  it 
is  told  with  force.  "A  Bye-product"  too  .  .  . 
is  sinister  in  its  simplicity.  The  last  story  .  .  . 
more  definitely  strikes  the  note  of  pure  beauty. 
The  character  of  Nan  Twohig  is  beautiful. 
^  ....  a  picture  of  Ireland  ....  a  picture 
charged  with  passion  and  pride. — Times  Liter- 
ary Supplement. 
....  it  is  impossible  to  blind  oneself  to  the 


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THE 
HOUNDS  OF  BANRA 

BY 

DANIEL  CORKEi,^ 


NEW  YORK     B.   W.    HUEBSCH,   INC.    MCMXXII 


All  rights  reserved 

PRINTED      IN      THE      U.      S.     A. 


TO  THE 
YOUNG  MEN  OF  IRELAND 


You  strike  in  here,  chant  your  wild  songs,  and  go: 

The  chroniclers,  with  rush  lights,  stumble  after: 

And  ah!  to  see  them  blot  the  sunrise  glow 

Of  your  bright  deeds  and  dreams,  your  tears  and  laughter. 


CONTENTS 

THE  EMBER,  n 

ON  THE  HEIGHTS,  37 

Co  WARDS,  55 

SEUMAS,  71 

THE  AHERNS,  105 

COLONEL  MAC  GILLICUDDY  GOES  HOME,  125 

AN  UNFINISHED  SYMPHONY,  153 

A  BYE-PRODUCT,  169 

THE  PRICE,  197 


THE  EMBER 


THE  EMBER 
I 

Nor  very  long  before  the  opening  of  the  war  I 
was  sent  to  organise  the  Volunteers  in  the  north- 
west corner  of  County  Cork.  I  made  my  way 
to  a  hamlet  called  Monera,  a  windy  spot  on  the 
lower  slope  of  a  mountain — a  handful  of  white- 
washed walls,  sharp-edged,  staring,  against  a 
background  that  was  rough  and  dark  with 
heather  and  rock,  hillside  and  hamlet  unrelieved 
by  a  single  bush  or  tree.  It  is  a  place  where 
everything  is  hard  and  black  and  challenging. 
For  my  purpose,  it  was  dead  and  cold,  yet  at  the 
same  time,  strangely  enough,  still  quite  proud  of 
the  fight  it  had  made  for  the  land  in  the  early 
'eighties.  Only  in  few  districts  in  those  wild  days 
were  such  wild  deeds  done;  they  tell  of  them  still, 
but  they  do  not  boast  of  them,  the  stories  arc  too 
terrible  for  that.  If  you  are  strange  to  the  ways 
of  the  people  you  will  blurt  out,  "But  which  of 
the  brothers  shot  him?"  and  you  will  be  answered 
quietly,  almost  without  surprise,  "Well,  now, 
isn't  it  a  queer  thing,  the  only  man  could  tell  you 
that,  he's  in  America  with  twenty  years." 

ii 


12        THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

It  was  strange  to  find  such  a  place  apathetic. 
Doubtless  it  had  carried  the  rough  and  over- 
bearing methods  of  Fenianism  into  the  Land 
League  struggle,  and  later  had  carried  the 
methods  of  the  Land  League,  hardly  less  terrible, 
into  the  politics  of  a  tamer  day,  only  to  find  them 
at  last  discountenanced;  whereupon  it  probably 
ceased  to  trouble  itself  any  more  with  such  affairs. 
The  old  fight,  the  Gael  against  the  Sassenach, 
that  was  what  those  windy  hillsides  were  set  for. 
The  fragments  of  Irish  verse  that  even  still  fall 
unexpectedly  from  the  lips  of  the  old  men,  the 
crafty  proverbs  they  fling  at  one  another  when 
bargaining  at  a  fair,  half  jocose,  wholly  earnest, 
their  vague  and  seemingly  fool-simple  answers  if 
they  cannot  fathom  the  reason  of  your  curiosity 
— that  immemorial  fight  it  was  that  gave  birth 
to  this  hard  wisdom,  this  ceaseless  alertness,  these 
fierce  songs. 

I  gathered  the  young  men  into  a  lamplit 
schoolroom,  and  spoke  to  them  of  the  Volunteer 
idea:  we  must  preserve  the  liberties  of  Ireland. 
The  fine  phrase  fell  on  them  as  though  they  were 
figures  of  lichened  stone,  their  clothing  of  stiff, 
undyed  homespun  suggesting  the  image.  I  soon 
made  an  end,  weakly  and  despairingly. 

I  had  a  young  lad  with  me,  I  was  breaking  him 
in,  he  was  presently  to  be  sent  off  organising  else- 
where. Well,  he  then  took  the  matter  in  hand, 


THE    EMBER  13 

and  he  put  the  violence  of  the  'prentice  boy  into 
his  oratory:  he  spoke  of  the  impending  attack  of 
the  Orangemen  of  the  North  on  us  all  as  soon  as 
ever  Home  Rule  was  granted.  We  must  arm 
against  that  attack,  we  must  preserve  our  newly- 
granted  liberty  from  assault,  even  with  our  lives ! 
From  his  fine  voice,  the  fine  attitude  he  threw — 
head  raised,  shoulders  stiffened,  pillared  legs — 
one  would  have  expected  a  burst  of  wild  applause 
— a  surging  forward  as  if  our  rough-built  plat- 
form must  be  rushed.  No  such  thing!  Only  a 
dull  staring  and  a  silence;  in  which  presently  a 
great  old  figure  rose  up — I  can  still  see  the  keen 
old  face,  the  eagle  eye,  deep  set,  the  sharp  bones 
— rose  up  deliberately,  faced  us  a  single  moment, 
and  then,  almost  carelessly,  threw  his  right 
shoulder  at  us,  making  for  the  open  door, 
uttering  a  vast  sigh,  "Home  Rule ! — Oh  wisha ! 
Wisha!  Wisha!" 

A  ripple  of  laughter  went  through  the  men; 
they  were  too  shy  or  too  unused  to  such  pro- 
ceedings to  make  any  freer  with  us.  My 
'prentice  boy  was  put  out.  The  old  eagle's  con- 
tempt had  left  him  unable  to  put  any  thought  at 
all  into  intelligible  words;  and  I  was  not  anything 
better.  The  crowded  men  below  us — the  lamps 
over  their  heads  struck  light  only  on  a  nose  or 
chin — were  shyly  turning  their  heads  to  one 
another,  and  had  begun  to  whisper.  I  stood  up, 


14        THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

and  at  the  same  moment,  in  a  far  corner,  a  wild- 
looking  figure  crouched  up  against  me,  fumbling 
at  the  air  with  a  great  hand,  thick  and  hard  from 
the  plough.  I  saw  him  making  an  effort  to  speak, 
the  light  on  his  working  chin.  "Young  man,"  he 
gasped,  "that's  not  the  talk  old  Muirish  wants  at 
all — aw! — you're  mistaken,  you're  mistaken 
entirely." 

The  gesture  of  his  open  hand  downed  us  for 
simpletons. 

"What  is  it  Muirish  wants?"  I  cried,  angrily. 
I  had  roused  a  lion. 

"What  is  it?"  he  roared  at  me.  "You  know 
very  well  what  it  is." 

His  eyes  stared,  as  if  they  had  no  power  to 
shift  away. 

They  were  now  all  on  their  feet,  catching  his 
hands,  cheering  him — and  drawing  away  from  us 
until  a  gap  lay  between  us.  One  of  them  then 
stepped  into  that  lamp-lit  space.  "Go  on!" 
"'Tis  all  right!"  "Go  on,  Jack!"  a  hundred 
phrases  were  whispered  behind  him.  He  was  a 
splendid  bit  of  manhood;  my  eyes  measured  him. 

"You  mean  well,"  he  said;  "we're  not  saying 
otherwise;  but  Muirish — that  man  that's  gone 
out — we're  all  one  in  these  parts — there's  no 
difference — we're  all  one — we're  all  one.  .  .  ." 

His  speech  had  become  incoherent.  We  were 
to  understand  that  Muirish  had  spoken  for  all. 


THE    EMBER  1$ 

Suddenly  there  was  movement  among  them,  one  of 
them  made  for  the  door,  just  as  Muirish  had 
done,  and  as  if  rejoiced  that  someone  had  dis- 
covered what  was  just  the  right  thing  to  do,  they 
all  at  once  rose  up  and  crowded  eagerly  after  him 
into  the  open  air,  leaving  us  there  in  the  empty 
room  with  a  ripple  of  laughter  in  our  ears. 

I  looked  at  my  'prentice  boy — he  was  so  white 
and  rough  with  passion  that  I  thought  it  well  to 
keep  silent.  After  some  intentional  delay  on  my 
part,  we  lit  our  lamps  and  cycled  away  into  the 
dark,  that  ripple  of  laughter  still  in  our  ears;  and 
I  thought  how  much  better  it  were  for  an  evan- 
gelist in  Eirinn  to  leave  a  place  under  a  hail  of 
turf  sods  than  in  such  a  manner,  how  he  would 
have  more  chance  of  being  listened  to  if  ever  he 
returned. 

The  only  comfort  I  could  pluck  from  the  occur- 
rence was  the  thought  that  I  had  at  last  found  the 
key  to  somewhat  similar  occurrences  in  other 
places  in  Munster.  In  certain  baronies  we  would 
get  a  royal  welcome,  in  the  very  next  barony 
to  these  we  might  be  treated  as  in  Monera. 
"Why,"  I  now  said,  with  my  eyes  eating  up  the 
stony  way,  "there's  a  Muirish  in  every  one  of 
them!"  And  then,  my  mind  running  on,  I  saw 
that  every  extreme  movement  in  Ireland  leaves 
behind  it  a  remnant  of  its  broken  army — an  old 
workman  in  a  factory  in  a  city,  a  cobbler  in  a  little 


16        THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

shop  in  a  village,  or,  like  Muirish,  a  shepherd  in 
a  hut  on  a  mountain-side — great  old  hearts  that 
preserve  to  the  next  generation,  even  to  the  sec- 
ond next,  the  spark  of  fire  that  they  themselves 
had  received  in  the  self-same  manner  from  those 
that  long  since  were  gone  home  into  the  silence. 
Old  embers  that  seem  extinct  and  grey,  Oisins 
dreaming  of  the  heroic  dead  they  have  so  long 
outlived,  ineffectual  in  a  thousand  cases,  except 
to  raise  jeers  and  laughter,  but  in  others, 
where  natural  powers  of  will  and  mind  aid  them, 
not  ineffectual  in  hardening  the  thoughts  of  a 
hillside  or  the  thoughts  of  a  little  group  of  men 
in  a  corner  of  a  big  town,  making  of  them  a 
rocky  soil  for  newer  ideas. 


II 

Before  I  was  sent  again  to  Monera  the  world 
was  far  into  the  great  war,  and  volunteering  had 
become  a  dangerous  propaganda.  The  "old 
fight"  was  again  on.  England's  difficulty  was 
Ireland's  opportunity,  and  England  had  plainly 
never  been  in  such  difficulty.  To  those  of  us 
who  had  learned  to  read  the  Irish  poets,  their 
well-knit,  stone-hard,  wolf-fierce  songs  were  ever 
in  our  ears;  they  haunted  us,  those  songs,  and  in- 
deed the  men  themselves,  they  looked  at  us  from 


THEEMBER  17 

the  dark  with  wild  eyes;  we  remembered  what 
they  had  suffered,  we  knew  what  had  wrung 
those  songs  from  them. 

"Life  conquereth  still;  as  dust  the  whirlwinds  blow — 

Alexander,  Caesar,  and  all  their  power  and  due! 
Tara  is  grass,  and  Troy  itself  lieth  low — 
It  may  be  that  Death  will  reach  the  English  too." 

Such  lines  haunted  me.  I  awoke  at  night  with 
them  flowing  from  my  lips.  They  were  on  my 
tongue  as,  for  the  second  time,  I  rode  of  a  night- 
fall into  that  death-still,  white-walled  hamlet — 
the  bearer  of  a  fiery  cross. 

At  the  first  cry  of  real  war  Monera  had  leaped 
to  arms;  witnessing  it,  Muirish  doubtless  had 
thrown  a  score  of  years  from  his  back.  As  fine  a 
company  of  Volunteers  as  I  had  ever  drilled 
awaited  me  there.  Their  Captain's  name  was 
Felix  MacSwiney.  Felix  is  a  name  common 
among  the  MacSwineys.  He  praised  the  courage 
of  his  men,  yet,  I  could  see,  he  stood  afraid  of 
them:  he  could  not  hold  them  in.  He  had  tried 
to  quench  that  spirit  in  them  by  dint  of  what  he 
called  Barrack  Square  drilling,  and  now  they 
were  growing  restive  under  it.  Could  I  bring 
variety  into  their  soldiering? 

We — he  and  I — determined  on  some  skirmish- 
ing among  the  rocky  hills.  We  planned  a  sham 
attack;  that  night  we  would  carry  it  out.  He 


l8        THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

would  have  his  men  assembled  in  a  secret  place 
in  the  hills,  I  would  be  guided  to  it. 

It  was  a  moonlight  night  in  August,  full  of 
tenderness  and  breadth  and  distance;  and  this, 
and  the  nature  of  the  country — the  huge  rocks, 
fallen  on  their  faces,  spreading  a  cloak  of  shadow, 
the  heathery  slopes  unresponsive  to  the  moon- 
light, unlit  by  it,  the  leaping  streams,  flashing  and 
carolling,  tireless  in  both — I  will  never  forget  it 
all — the  night,  the  land,  and  then  the  men,  the 
creatures  of  this  land!  Young  colts  were  not  so 
touchy,  so  eager,  so  highly-strung,  so  intelligent 
with  spirit:  their  large  eyes  flashed  at  me  in 
fiery  earnestness.  They  would  bark  their  shins 
against  the  juts  of  rock,  rush  unthinkingly 
through  streams  and  boggy  hollows,  and  leap 
across  chasms  that  frightened  me.  We  sur- 
rounded, or  rather  half  surrounded  our  objective, 
and  most  skilfully  took  it — a  difficult  massif  that 
culminated  in  a  huge  leaning  turret  of  rock, 
called  the  Priest's  Tower.  Then  we  rested — 
where?  Between  it  and  the  gaping  chasm  be- 
low, on  a  narrow  slope  of  grass  cropped  and 
recropped  by  those  mountainy  sheep  that  our 
skirmishing  had  sent,  with  timid  cries,  scamper- 
ing into  the  dark  nooks.  Above  us,  blanched  in 
the  moonlight,  leaned  the  towering  mass,  not 
unlike  an  epic  priest,  indeed;  below  us,  just  a 
mass  of  shadow,  with  here  and  there  a  flank  of 


THE    EMBER  19 

rock,  bright  with  moonlight;  and  far  under  the 
shadow  a  leaping  stream  whose  voice  was  so 
constantly  i;n  the  ear  that  one  forgot  it — ex- 
cept in  the  silences.  We  looked  down  into  it, 
this  floating,  veil-like  shadow,  and  leaning  over 
us  that  rock-built  priest  also  looked  down 
into  it,  but  with  greater  intentness,  it  would 
seem. 

Not  long  could  the  lads  keep  silent.  They 
began  to  see  companies  and  companies  of  march- 
ing men  in  these  various  shadowings.  They  de- 
scribed their  movements,  spied  out  their  objec- 
tives. Presently  they  began  to  drill  them — these 
legions  of  their  restless  minds.  "Eyes  right! 
Left  turn!  Form  fours!" — a  hundred  voices  (I 
thought  I  caught  a  hint  of  mimicry  here  and 
there  in  them),  a  hundred  cries,  and  the  rocks, 
awakened,  bravely  sent  them  back.  At  last  I 
made  them  a  little  speech,  and  Felix  MacSwiney 
dismissed  them. 

He  and  I  then  cut  across  the  defile  by  a  path 
I  had  not  suspected,  crossed  the  brawling  stream, 
and  made  up  the  opposite  slope  of  mountain. 
I  was  to  sleep  in  his  place.  Leisurely  we  climbed, 
full  of  earnest  talk,  yet  not  unconscious  of  the 
beauty  of  the  night,  now  so  full  of  calm  and 
silence  after  the  chatter  and  the  ringing  cries. 
We  struck  at  last  into  a  little  path.  It  widened. 
We  came  on  the  traces  of  a  wheel  track.  Higher 


20         THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

up,  the  mass  of  a  little  hut,  thatched  to  the 
ground  it  seemed,  silhouetted  itself  suddenly 
against  the,  sky.  A  tiny  little  wi'ndow,  dimly 
lighted,  hid  itself  in  under  the  thatch.  I  stepped 
up. 

"That  is?"  I  said. 

"  'Tis  there  he  lives,"  he  answered,  "Muirish." 

"Alone? — not  alone,  there?"  I  asked  again 
quickly. 

"Why,  yes,  except  for  the  dogs — a  terrible 
breed.  Whenever  he  goes  into  the  village  for 
supplies,  they  walk  at  his  heels.  I  tell  you  I 
wouldn't  be  the  man  to  take  a  try  -o.ut  of  him 
and  they  about;  they'd  tear  you." 

We  stepped  towards  it  silently;  w'e  were  soon 
within  its  shadow. 

"We'll  strike  in,"  MacSwiney  whispered. 

"I'd  rather  not,"  I  answered.  An  encounter 
with  Muirish  would  quite  exhaust,  I  felt,  what- 
ever little  energy  I  had  left.  At  the  same  time, 
I  strained  my  eye  against  the  little  window,  there 
was  but  one  pane  in  it.  I  saw  a  couple  of  huge 
dogs,  one  a  greyhound,  lying  about  the  hearth 
flag  in  the  glow  of  the  turves,  curled  up  in  sleep. 
Otherwise  the  place  was  empty.  As  I  looked,  the 
hound  drew  his  shoulder-blades  up  around  his 
ears,  slowly  and  tensely,  then  suddenly  relaxed 
them  and  lay  still. 


TH  E    EMBER  21 

"There's  no  Muirish  here,"  I  whispered,  when 
I  was  sure  of  the  dog's  sleeping. 

"But,  look!  the  candle  is  lighting;  he's  not 
in  bed."  MacSwiney  raised  his  head;  he  was 
wondering  where  Muirish  could  be. 

"He  must  be  at  my  place,"  he  said  at  last. 

The  saying  was  not  too  welcome  to  me;  but 
I  withdrew  my  eyes  from  the  glowing  and  stilly 
interior,  and  made  forward  with  him,  not  speak- 
ing a  word.  We  were  just  about  to  step  from 
the  shadow  of  the  hut  into  the  flood  of  light 
when  he  stopped  me. 

"There!  there  !— look  at  him!" 

His  back  towards  us,  dark  as  a  pillar- 
stone,  Muirish  was  standing  on  a  boulder,  a  long 
staff  in  his  hand.  He  was  as  still  as  the  Priest's 
Tower  itself,  which  we  could  see  beyond  him, 
standing  high  and  lonely  across  and  above  the 
shadowy  defile.  The  collie  dog  that  stood  be- 
side him,  its  nose  in  the  air,  was  no  less  still  and 
alert  than  its  master.  The  two  together,  they 
made  a  group  very  like  that  rocky  tower  beyond 
them.  That  at  its  own  side  and  these  at  their 
side  were  holding  vigil  above  the  tumbled  rocks, 
the  waters  and  the  shadows.  The  old  man's 
attitude  was  one  of  listening,  listening  rather 
than  peering:  it  was  for  that  reason  we  held  our- 
selves so  still.  He  slowly  raised  his  head,  turned 


22         THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

round,  an4  leaning  heavily  on  the  staff,  de- 
scended from  his  point  of  vantage.  We  kept 
our  stillness.  He  passed  close  to  us,  the  dog 
sidling  along  at  his  right  hand.  He  lifted  the 
latch  and  went  in,  closing  the  door  behind  him. 

"He  was  listening  to  our  drilling,"  I  said  softly. 

"That's  it,  surely,"  there  was  relief  in  my  com- 
panion's voice.  I  could  not  help  peeping  once 
again  through  that  dim  pane  of  glass.  He  was 
seated  on  the  settle,  straight  opposite  my  eyes. 
He  sat  rigid,  intensely  gathered  into  his  thoughts. 
His  sceptre  lay  beside  him;  his  two  fists  fiercely 
clasped  his  shapeless  felt  hat  against  his  breast. 
It  was  not  a  restful  attitude,  yet  it  would  hold 
him  for  hours,  one  felt.  He  was  far  removed, 
whether  into  the  past  or  future,  who  could  say? 
Or  whether  he  was  making  a  prayer? 


Ill 

I  will  now  tell  of  my  third  meeting  with  him. 
It  was  late  in  the  summer  of  1916 — memorable 
year.  I  was  on  the  run,  or,  in  the  phrase  that 
goes  through  so  many  centuries  of  Irish  history, 
I  was  on  my  keeping.  I  had  been  in  the  Post 
Office  in  Dublin  during  the  whole  of  Easter  Week. 
I  had  seen  the  ring  of  fire  closing  in  around  us, 
had  gazed,  fascinated,  at  the  scared  cats  walk- 


THEEMBER  23 

ing  rather  leisurely  from  the  burning  houses, 
had  tended  a  friend  whose  reason  had  given  away, 
had  taken  drugs  to  preserve  my  own.  Now  the 
police  were  chivying  me  and  a  thousand  others, 
it  would  seem,  from  place  to  place.  I  had  es- 
caped them  a  hundred  times.  As  an  old  woman 
I  had  walked  through  a  party  of  them;  I 
cursed  them  in  Irish  that  they  should  think  a 
son  of  mine  one  of  them  rebels!  I  opened  the 
door  to  them  in  a  country  hotel — it  was  in  Clare- 
morris  neighbourhood — and  helped  them  search 
it,  through  and  through.  But  one  tires  of  being 
chivied  from  place  to  place  in  one's  own  country, 
and  the  idea  that  you  will  eventually  be  nabbed 
grows  stronger  and  stronger,  robbing  you  of  the 
sense  of  rest;  and  I  firmly  believe  what  I  have 
heard  a  friend  of  mine  say — one  who  had  led  the 
police  a  very  pretty  dance  indeed,  right  round  the 
Five  Fifths  of  Eirinn — that  a  feeling  of  volup- 
tuous ease  ran  through  him,  as  if  his  whole 
body  smiled,  when,  after  six  months  of  it,  a  rough 
hand  gripped  him  one  night  by  the  shoulder  and 
held  him  fast. 

It  was  in  the  city  of  Kilkenny — a  place  where 
the  young  men  have  the  voice  of  history  ever 
in  their  ears — that  the  thought  came  to  me,  "I 
will  rise  up  at  midnight  and  make  for  Monera  in 
the  quiet  hills,  and  there  I'll  heal  me  of  my  griev- 
ous wound."  I  do  not  know  why  or  how  it 


24        THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

is,  but  when  one  is  living  as  I  was  then,  acting 
a  part  with  which  s.o  many  books  of  Irish  history 
had  made  me  familiar,  a  touch  of  the  boy-heroic 
comes  back  into  one's  thoughts,  into  one's  lan- 
guage (at  least  when  alone),  and  no  matter  how 
much  one  may  smile  at  the  quaint  phrases,  they 
do  bring  a  certain  healing  with  them,  as  if  one 
had  made  a  fragment  of  song.  To  live  dan- 
gerously is,  I  suppose,  to  live  lyrically.  My  only 
wound  was  a  deep  melancholy  that  I  could  not 
shake  off,  let  me  rush  as  I  would  from  place  to 
place;  and  no  sooner  had  I  spoken  the  silly  words 
than  I  really  did  feel  some  lightening  of  the  strain 
of  flight.  In  Monera,  at  MacSwiney's  house,  I 
would  lie  lost  until  my  nerves  were  strong  again. 
(And  at  the  back  of  my  mind  there  was  per- 
haps, at  the  same  time,  the  sly,  malicious  thought 
that  I,  who  had  risked  all  in  the  burning  post 
office,  would  find  out  Muirish  and  fling  his  scorn- 
ful "Wisha!  Wisha!  Wisha!"  back  into  his 
teeth.) 

I  reached  Monera,  and  made  my  way  to  Mac- 
Swiney's house  at  Kilsheelan.  I  walked  into  it 
just  as  his  people,  his  mother  and  two  sisters, 
were  making  the  place  ready  for  the  night.  They 
had  had  no  tidings  of  me,  had  thought  of  me  as 
among  the  unnamed  dead,  for  they  had  come 
to  know  that  I  had  never  been  deported  to  Fron- 
goch  with  the  other  prisoners,  had  never  appeared 


THEEMBER  2$ 

before  a  court-martial.  How  their  Irish  welcome 
went  round  my  heart !  Gaels  of  the  Gael,  they  re- 
ceived me,  spoke  to  me,  welcomed  me,  slaved  for 
me  in  the  true  Gaelic  spirit,  and  quite  without 
knowing  it.  Their  forefathers  had  been  doing 
as  much  for  the  hunted  Gaels  of  four  centuries — 
those  shadowy,  unnamed  warriors,  poets,  strag- 
glers, kerns,  gallowglasses,  tories,  rapparees,  out- 
laws, white-boys,  fenians — who  would  crowd  on 
my  imagination,  unbidden,  unlocked  for,  often  in 
the  most  listless  moments,  the  name  of  a  bridge 
or  hill,  a  flash  of  princely  pride  in  a  peasant  boy's 
face,  or  a  verse  of  vengeful  curses  from  an  old 
bedridden  crone  summoning  them  with  rude  po- 
tency from  their  haphazard  graves.  My  heart 
opened.  "Yes,  I'm  tired,  God  knows  it,  but  .  .  . 
let  us  sit  at  the  door,  Felix,  the  night  is  too  beau- 
tiful for  sleep." 

We  did  so,  sitting  there  by  each  other  on  two 
boulders  that  helped  to  buttress  the  gable  of  his 
house.  We  talked  quietly,  even  sadly,  for  our 
movement  was  broken,  perhaps  finished,  yet  not 
dishonoured:  and  the  moon  sloped  across  the 
Priest's  Tower,  looking  at  us  with  shining,  won- 
dering face,  as  a  child  might.  We  sank  into 
silence,  as  if  to  let  it  go  by;  and  I  knew  the  bles- 
sedness of  a  somewhat  wistful  peacefulness. 

Nothing  is  easier  than  to  overstay  your  time  on 
the  heights;  a  moment  later  I  had  said  to  my 


26         THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

friend:  "And  Muirish?  There's  no  change  in 
him?  He's  the  same  cross-grained,  cranky  old 
fenian?  We  were  only  play-actors,  he  said.  .  .  ." 
(That  malicious  thought  was  uttering  itself.) 

Felix  rose  up.  He  would  not  answer  without 
a  moment's  delay.  Silently  he  lifted  himself, 
slowly,  in  tune  with  the  thought  that  held 
him.  Then,  smiling,  he  stretched  out  a  hand  to 
the  moonlit  wall  and  took  hold  of  a  snail  that 
was  climbing  it  obliquely,  leaving  a  silvery  track; 
without  looking  at  it  he  threw  it  behind  him  into 
the  greenery.  He  wiped  his  fingers  on  his 
trousers.  In  my  mind  I  was  repeating:  But  Mui- 
rish? Muirish?  However,  Felix  making  no 
movement  to  sit  again,  I  rose  up  beside  him, 
saying:  "There's  a  heavy  dew,  and  you'll  be  ris- 
ing early  in  the  morning." 

"  'Tis  better  go  in,"  he  said. 

He  slept  that  night  on  the  settle,  surrendering 
me  his  bed.  He  showed  me  into  the  little  room, 
placed  the  candle  on  the  table,  and  turned  to  go. 
He  paused  then  and  said:  "As  for  Muirish — I'm 
getting  frightened  about  him."  His  eyes  looked 
at  me.  An  unpleasant  thought  swept  a  shadow 
across  my  mind.  I  dismissed  it  with  a  toss  of  my 
head. 

"Nonsense,  I'd  trust  him;  he's  too  old  to 
change." 

"Oh — not  that !    Not  that !    Muirish  is  as  true 


THEEMBER  27 

as  steel.  But  he's  not  himself — that's  what 
I  mean.  I'm  uneasy  about  him,  and  he  has  no 
one  with  him." 

I  thought  a  moment. 

"We'll  go  to  see  him,"  I  said. 

He  bent  his  head.     "I'd  like  it,"  he  replied. 

"To-morrow  night,  then." 

It  was  delicious  rest  I  had  that  night.  I  was 
too  tired  to  sleep,  and  indeed  I  hardly  wished 
for  sleep,  my  nerves  were  so  perceptibly  losing 
the  sense  of  strain  that  had  held  them  so 
long.  I  felt  it  slipping  from  me,  quietly, 
quietly.  And  when  I  quenched  the  candle,  above 
my  eyes  was  the  rich  glow  from  the  turf  losing  it- 
self in  the  dark  thatch  and  the  dark  roof-timbers, 
very  warm  and  mellow.  And  sometimes,  with  a 
very  thrill  of  delight,  I  would  feel  my  mind  open 
itself  to  the  vision  of  the  hundred  thousand  hill- 
tops that  were  outside  those  cosy  walls — I  would 
feel  the  moonlight  bathing  them  in  peace,  and  the 
cold  stars  above  them.  "Monera,  Monera,  Mon- 
era  1"  I  whispered  for  very  love  of  it,  my  spirit 
growing  all  the  time  from  strength  to  strength. 
At  last — there  was  Muirish  as  I  had  last  seen 
him,  a  slab  of  stone  with  a  skirt  of  shadow  about 
itl  Yet  Monera !  Monera !  was  what  I  still  whis- 
pered while  still  beholding  in  vision  the  intense 
old  figure  watching  and  waiting  above  the  vale, 
as  if  Monera  and  he  were  one.  I  ceased  my  lyric 


28    .     THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

word.  I  went  into  a  deep  stillness.  Then  I 
lifted  myself  on  an  elbow,  and  stared  through  the 
little  window,  on  which  the  turf  glow  was  dancing 
into  the  rich  blue  that  lay  beyond.  But  when  I 
settled  down  again,  with  firm  assurance  of  sleep, 
I  knew  what  I  should  do  next  day.  At  break- 
fast I  said: — 

"Felix,  as  I  came  through  Duhallow  I  discov- 
ered that  the  Volunteers  were  beginning  to  pull 
themselves  together.  .  .  ." 

He  caught  at  my  hopefulness : — 

"Do  you  wish  it?  Do  you  wish  it?"  he 
blurted  out,  in  the  quick  way  of  the  southron. 

"Why  shouldn't  I  wish  it?"  I  said. 

"I  was  afraid  you'd  throw  cold  water  on  it,  you 
who  were  in  the  fight,  who  saw  the  surrender." 

That  very  day  Felix  went  around  the  valleys, 
and  that  same  night  we  had  as  large  a  muster  as 
before  at  the  Priest's  Tower.  My  commands 
rang  bravely  out;  and  the  lads  drilled  with  a  se- 
riousness that  had  had  no  place  in  our  previous 
drillings.  I  went  cold  to  think  suddenly  that  the 
next  fight,  if  ever  it  came,  would  be  fought  out  to 
the  cry,  "Revenge!"  Almost  in  silence  we  dis- 
missed the  company,  and,  as  before,  made  for 
the  lonely  hut. 

A  voice  suddenly  startled  us : — 

"You'll  come  in,  you'll  come  in?" 

Muirish  was  making  down  on  us,  with  a  nerv- 


THEEMBER  29 

ous  swiftness  in  his  plunging  forward  that 
frightened  me.  Felix  spoke  as  quickly  in 
reply : — 

"We  were  going  up.     Be  careful,  Muirish." 

"Ah — you  were  drilling,  I  heard  ye,  I  heard 
ye.  Say  it,  say  it?"  He  was  shaking  with 
excitement. 

"We  were,"  I  answered. 

"I  do  be  deceiving  myself,  I  do  be  fancying 
I  hear  voices."  His  hand  went  across  his  brow. 

"It  was  our  voices,  the  lads,  you  heard." 

"Come  in,  come  in,  I  want  ye." 

We  followed  him  in. 

"Felix,"  he  said;  "'tis  the  same?" 

He  looked  at  me,  he  looked  at  Felix. 

"The  same,"  Felix  answered;  "and  he  was  in 
the  fight  in  Dublin — he's  a  hunted  man." 

"Ah!  Ah!"  He  was  caressing  my  hand.  "Sit 
there,  my  son."  I  sat  down. 

"Felix,"  he  said,  "maybe  you'd  leave  this  young 
man  and  myself  the  freedom  of  the  place  for  a 
while?" 

Felix  sprang  up. 

"Since  you  wish  it,  Muirish."  There  was  re- 
spect and  understanding  in  the  voice. 

"  'Tis  kind  for  him  to  be  like  that,"  the  old 
man  said  when  the  door  had  closed  again  on  us. 

The  place  was  not  different:  there  was  his  staff 
close  to  his  hand;  there  were  his  dogs — the  great 


30        THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

hound's  body  taking  beautiful  curves  in  his  sleep; 
but  the  old  man  was  shrunken  away  a  good  deal 
from  what  he  was  when  last  I  saw  him,  and  his 
boldness  of  address  was  gone. 

"Wait  now,"  he  said,  and  I  could  see  the  con- 
centration it  needed  before  he  could  say  what  was 
in  his  mind;  it  was  visible  in  his  rapt  stillness,  in 
his  bent  brows.  After  a  long  and,  for  me,  ner- 
vous pause,  my  mind  running  on  Felix's  fear,  he 
said : — 

"Ye  held  out  a  week."  He  was,  of  course, 
talking  of  our  fight  in  Dublin.  There  followed 
a  deeper  silence  than  before.  Then  he  thrust 
his  head  forward  into  mine,  and  his  fierce  old  eye 
held  me. 

"Cogar,"  he  said,  "it  wasn't  any  shortage  of 
powder  and  ball  betrayed  ye?" 

I  was  glad  to  be  able  to  answer  him : — 

"Oh,  no,  not  at  all — except,  except  in  one 
place,  perhaps,  and  even  there " 

"What's  that — what's  that  you're  saying?" 

He  had  clutched  my  shoulder,  I  was  trem- 
bling to  his  trembling. 

"In  one  place  .  .  .  where  young  Heuston  was, 
they  say  the  ammunition  ran  out  .  .  ." 

His  clutch  fell  off  and  he  sat  back,  a  figure  of 
stone,  before  me.  For  a  moment  I  knew  that  he 
neither  felt  nor  saw  nor  thought;  I  grew  afraid. 

"But  what  did  that  matter?"    I  rushed  out  my 


THE    EMBER  31 

words.  "In  either  case  he  would  have  had  to 
give  in  when  the  general  surrender  came.  No, 
Muirish,  no;  it  was  not  want  of  ammunition " 

"You're  sure?" 

"I'm  sure." 

"You're  sure,  young  man;  you're  sure  of  it?" 

His  clutch  on  me  again,  he  would  shake  the 
truth  from  me. 

"As  sure  as  I'm  sitting  here." 

His  grip  released,  but  not  the  force  in  his  voice. 

"Then  what  was  it?" 

"It  was  want  of,  want  of,  ...  everything! 
Want  of  men,  want  of  ...  everything!" 

"I  suppose  it  was,"  he  said,  very  quietly. 
'Tis  I  should  know."  His  face  turned  away 
from  me,  and  I  was  glad  for  it.  His  lips  pursed 
themselves  out,  and  when,  after  long  thought  it 
seemed  to  me,  he  spoke  again,  it  was  not  to  me 
alone  he  spoke: — 

"Them  big  guns  of  theirs,  a  mint  of  money 
wouldn't  buy  even  one  of  them." 

"You  may  sing  it,"  I  said. 

He  thought  again: — 

"But  that's  no  excuse  for  me." 

I  did  not  understand  him.  I  said  nothing. 
He  rose  up. 

"If  I  go  into  that  caboose  of  mine,"  he  said, 
nodding  at  a  little  ramshackle  room  he  had  made 
at  the  gable  end  away  from  us,  "you'll  maybe 


32         THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

wait  till  I  come  back  to  ye?"  It  was  an  old 
man's  speech. 

"Of  course  I'll  wait,"  I  returned. 

He  went  slowly  across  the  earthen  ground, 
and  I  soon  heard  him  searching  for  something  in 
the  little  place  beyond.  .  .  .  He  was  coming.  A 
little  ticken  bag  it  was  that  he  held  out  to  me. 

"Take  it,"  he  said. 

There  were  coins  in  it  and  notes. 

"No,  no;  I  couldn't  dream  of  it.  Things  are 
so  dear,  you'll  want  it;  besides " 

"Even  if  I  did  want  it,"  he  smiled  at  me,  "I 
couldn't  touch  it;  'tisn't  mine  to  make  free  with. 
Them  that  entrusted  it  to  me — they're  cold  this 
thirty  years — 'twasn't  for  that  they  left  it  with 
me.  Take  it,  young  man,  and  sorry  I  am  I  didn't 
make  it  over  on  ye  when  ye  were  here  be- 
fore." 

"That's  fenian  gold,"  I  said. 

"It  is,  and  for  fifty  years  I  have  kept  my  grip 
on  it." 

"It  will  get  to  the  right  quarters,  never  fear," 
I  said  bravely. 

He  was  smiling  to  himself.  He  spoke  now  in 
a  quiet  voice : — 

"  'Tis  queer,"  he  began,  "but  'tis  often  I  found 
myself  speaking  to  that  little  bag  of  gold  the 
same  as  if  it  would  be  a  Christian  man.  'Ye're 
useless,'  I'd  say  to  it;  'I  may  as  well  throw  ye  into 


THEEMBER  33 

the  river.  If  I  hand  ye  over  to  the  young  men 
nowadays  'tis  on  the  hounds  they'd  spend  ye,  or 
on  the  goaling,  maybe.'  That's  what  I'd  say  to 
it;  and  yet  I  was  wrong;  'tis  them  very  same 
young  lads  made  the  fight  in  Dublin,  so  they  tell 
me.  But  an  old  man's  mind,  'tis  a  queer  contriv- 


ance." 


"  'Tis  wanted  now  worse  than  ever,"  I  said. 

That  pleased  him. 

"Do  you  tell  me  so?  And  it  wouldn't  have 
made  any  difference  if  I  gave  it  to  ye  before?" 

"Not  a  bit  of  difference,"  I  said. 

"  'Tis  a  great  consolation  ye're  giving  me.  I 
was  broken  with  thinking  on  it.  I  tell  you,  a  man 
can  be  too  wise  and  too  careful  and  too  mistrust- 
ful. And  I  was  always  like  that.  But  'tis  in  ease 
I'll  lay  my  head  down  in  my  empty  house  this 
night.  Good  night  to  ye." 

He  had  hobbled  with  me  to  the  door.  I 
paused.  I  looked  up  into  his  face;  I  suddenly 
thought  of  what  I  would  say  to  him;  I  would 
hearten  him  with  those  four  lines  that  were  ever 
and  always  in  our  thoughts,  of  how  decay  would 
as  surely  come  upon  the  English  as  it  had  come 
upon  Alexander  and  Caesar: — 

"Do  threasgair  an  saol  is  do  sheid  an  ghaoth  mar  smal 
Alastram,  Caesar  is  an  mheid  do  bhi  'na  bpairt; 
Ta  an  Teamhair  'na  fear  is  feach  an  Traoi  mar  ta, 
'S  na  Sasanaigh  fein,  dob'  fheidir  go  bhfaighdis  has." 


34        THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

He  drank  them  in,  he  swallowed  them  with 
open  mouth. 

"Again!  Again!"  he  said;  and  again  I  repeated 
them,  I  knew  he  was  making  them  his  own.  I 
knew,  too,  I  had  given  him  in  perfect  form  the 
whole  burden  and  pressure  of  his  thoughts.  He 
turned  in,  wondering  how  that  could  be — wonder- 
ing, yet  comforted,  comforted  for  ever. 


ON  THE  HEIGHTS 


ON  THE  HEIGHTS 
I 

A  STRANGER  handed  in  a  little  slip  of  paper  at 
the  door  of  the  farmhouse  in  Acharas  where  I 
had  been  hiding  for  several  weeks:  within  ten 
minutes  of  receiving  it  I  was  on  my  bicycle,  was 
flying  at  break-neck  speed  down  mountainy  bohe- 
reens,  one  after  another,  crossing  through  water- 
courses without  dismounting,  and  skimming  the 
sharp  corners  of  boulders  by  half  inches  or  less. 
And  yet  I  was  all  but  caught!  Only  for  their 
hooting,  as  their  motor  swerved  from  the  main 
road,  I  had  ridden  into  their  arms.  I  caught  that 
hoot !  hoot !  and  flung  from  my  path  by  very  in- 
stinct; slap-dash  in  among  the  rocks  and  furze  I 
went,  went  as  far  as  I  could,  then  threw  myself 
off  on  the  heather,  and  breathing  like  a  swim- 
mer after  a  long  swim  against  time,  could  do 
nothing  but  wait,  helpless.  Puffing  and  panting 
on  my  knees,  I  could  see  them  between  the  rocks : 
with  frowning  determination  they  were  putting 
their  heavy  military  motor  at  the  hill,  and  I 
recognised  the  sergeant  in  charge.  "Mullery!" 
I  gasped,  and  grabbed  my  handlebar  again  by 

37 


38         THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

instinct.  If  I  fell  into  Mullery's  hands,  it  meant 
five  years :  he  was  a  man  that  would  swear  any- 
thing. When  they  had  gone  by,  I  mounted 
again,  and  swept  into  Gougane  Barra  by  the  back 
road,  and  was  just  making  on  for  Keimaneigh 
when  something  spoke  in  my  ear — perhaps  it  was 
the  old  Gaelic  saints  who  lie  there  at  rest — "They 
will  have  set  a  watch  in  Keimaneigh :  take  the 
mountains."  And  so,  instead  of  taking  the  com- 
fortable if  heavy  road  through  the  Pass  of  Kei- 
maneigh, I  made  straight  for  Co.omroe,  facing 
the  great  walls  of  rock  that  enclose  that  most  im- 
pressive of  mountain  glens.  I  have  never  heard 
that  any  other  mortal  ever  pushed  a  bicycle  up 
the  one  thousand  eight  hundred  feet  of  jagged 
rock  that  hangs  above  the  inches  there;  but  I  did 
it,  how  I  do  not  know,  unless  it  was  the  vision  of 
that  dogged  face  in  the  motor  car  that  kept  me 
ever  pushing  on  and  on  and  up  and  up. 

As  I  shoved,  dragged,  slided,  lifted  my  wheels 
up  the  rocks,  the  sweat  ran  freely  and  warmly 
down  my  back  and  limbs.  I  gave  it  no  thought,  I 
felt  no  weariness.  But  when  I  reached  the  sum- 
mit and  expected  to  see  the  sun  again,  a  cold  sea 
wind  struck  me,  refreshed  me,  and  then,  suddenly, 
chilled  me;  and  up  before  me  rose  a  wall  of  white 
mist.  I  looked  for  the  mountain-peaks  that  used 
to  guide  me  there,  but  none  were  visible  in  the 


ON    THE    HEIGHTS  39 

cloud.  Feeling  it  all  around  me,  licking  and 
stroking  me,  and  remembering  how  warm  it  had 
been  in  the  coom,  I  knew  I  was  making  into  a 
night  of  r"ain;  and  there  are  no  wetter  hills  in  the 
whole  of  Munster.  As  I  went  forward  I  tried 
to  recollect  the  whereabouts  of  the  nearest  house 
in  those  forlorn  uplands,  but  all  my  landmarks 
were  blotted  out.  I  came  suddenly  on  a  close- 
huddled  flock  of  black-faced  mountainy  sheep; 
they  looked  at  me  and  scampered  off  into  the 
mists  with  timid  cries;  they,  too,  seemed  to  be 
waiting  for  the  rain.  I  felt  lonelier  than  before. 
The  pursuit  was  over  and  done  with — years  ago, 
it  appeared.  I  thought  of  it  no  more.  Could 
I  make  the  Coomahola  river  before  nightfall,  was 
the  only  question  that  would  rise  up  in  my  mind, 
as  I  pushed  my  bicycle  now  over  the  shale  and 
then  through  growths  of  fragrant  bog-myrtle. 
And  it  would  come  into  my  mind,  too,  that  though 
I  was  making  forward  with  fair  speed  I  was  do- 
ing no  good,  for  I  did  not  know  where  I  was  go- 
ing. Yet  somehow  I  feared  to  stop.  I  stumbled 
on  and  on,  till  suddenly  I  saw  beside  me  a  flat 
table  of  rock,  about  two  feet  high,  as  perfectly 
shaped  as  if  stonecutters  had  worked  at  it.  Be- 
fore I  had  willed  it,  it  seemed,  I  was  sitting  on  it 
with  a  sense  of  delicious  ease.  "I  will  think  out 
exactly  where  I  am  and  where  I  will  go,"  I  said, 


40        THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

comforting  myself  with  a  pretence  of  will  power 
that  I  knew  well  was  but  a  pretence.  Then  down 
came  the  rain,  slanting  from  the  south-west. 


II 

I  bowed  my  head  to  it  in  sheer  hopelessness 
— and  that  action  it  was  that  saved  me.  Beneath 
my  eyes  I  saw  certain  light  marks  on  the  ground, 
not  wheel  marks — they  were  not  more  than  two 
feet  six  apart,  and  besides  they  were  not  cut  into 
the  ground.  I  was  instantly  following  them.  I 
knew  what  they  were.  They  were  the  marks  of 
a  "tray,"  as  the  peasants  of  that  place  call  it  both 
in  Irish  and  English — a  sort  of  light  sleigh  on 
which  they  bring  down  the  cut  turf  from  places 
in  the  uplands  that  are  too  steep  for  horse  and 
cart.  These  marks  meant  a  house,  sooner  or 
later.  With  the  greatest  care  I  kept  to  them. 
And  soon  I  began  to  come  on  other  signs  of  hu- 
man ways  and  strivings — a  cairn  of  stones,  a  first 
effort  at  a  clearance,  then  a  crazy  sort  of  bound- 
ary fence,  long  abandoned  to  its  own  will,  then  at 
last  two  forked  stakes  in  the  ground,  a  young  ash 
sapling  laid  across  them,  closing  a  gap.  I  blessed 
the  human  touch:  the  pious  hands  of  husbandry 
had  made  it!  Then  I  struck  the  path. 

The  night  thickened,  and  the  rain  thickened; 


ON    THE    HEIGHTS  41 

but  now  with  the  path  beneath  my  feet,  all 
broken  shale  it  was,  I  did  not  mind.  I  thought 
I  might  leave  my  bicycle  there  until  I  had  found 
the  house,  which  I  knew  to  be  somewhere  in  the 
darkness.  I  laid  it  in  the  dripping  heather  and 
made  more  swiftly  on.  (I  recovered  it  next  day, 
clean  as  a  new  pin.)  A  waft  of  turf  smoke  struck 
me.  I  breathed  it  in  with  wide  nostrils.  My 
spirits  rose,  I  could  shout  out.  Then  in  a  pit  of 
darkness  beneath  me  to  the  right  I  saw  the  tiny 
little  eye  of  a  lamplit  window,  warm-coloured,  and 
looking  as  if  its  kindly  gleam  had  been  peering  out 
that  way  on  the  hills  for  thousands  and  thousands 
of  years,  so  steady  it  was.  I  used  no  caution. 
I  made  for  it  through  the  blackness,  and  lost  the 
path.  I  found  myself  stumbling  down  the  side  of 
a  little  ravine — I  splashed  through  a  leaping 
stream,  I  almost  fell  upon  the  door.  I  banged 
it  with  my  fist.  I  heard  movement  within,  a 
collie  whined,  voices  whispered.  I  could  not 
wait.  I  banged  again,  and  the  rain  pelted  my 
warm  wrist.  I  caught  the  latch  and  shook  the, 
door.  "Open!  Open!"  I  cried.  Within,  I 
heard  the  bolts  being  withdrawn. 

A  low-toned,  uncertain  voice  spoke  in  my 
face : — 

"Who  arc  you  ?  What  is  it  you  want  ?  Come 
in.  You're  all  wet." 

A  dull-looking,  middle-aged  man  and  his  wife, 


42        THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

a  soft-featured,  kindly  creature,  drew  back  from 
me,  and  continued  to  sta*re  at  me;  I  felt  annoyed 
at  their  doubtful  reception;  there  was  no  hearti- 
ness in  it. 

"I'm  wet  all  right,"  I  said,  trying  to  speak 
calmly;  but  then  I  added  with  a  bitterness  I  could 
not  help,  "there  arc  more  than  me  on  the  hills 
these  times,  and  better  than  me." 

By  these  words  I  would  give  them  to  under- 
stand why  I  was  on  the  hills. 

The  man's  jaw  fell;  he  looked  at  his  wife;  they 
stared  at  me  helplessly,  even  more  stupidly  than 
before,  I  thought,  and  more  frigidly.  He  came 
one  step  towards  me  and  whispered : — 

"Maybe  you'd  speak  low?  Maybe  you 
would?" 

What  did  he  mean? 

"Draw  up  to  the  fire;  take  your  coat  off,"  the 
woman  said,  handing  me  a  towel  to  wipe  my  face. 

"Why  should  I  speak  low?  Is  there  anyone 
sick?"  I  said,  looking  at  the  poor  staring  creature 
that  was  man  of  the  house. 

"No,  no;  there's  no  one  sick,  thanks  be  to  God; 
glory  be  to  His  Holy  Name!" 

He  was  smiling  at  me  in  an  indeterminate  sort 
of  way,  his  jaw  hanging.  He  was  a  weak- 
mouthed  man,  I  could  see.  He  went  doddering 
away.  -His  wife  pointed  to  the  door  in  the  par- 
tition at  the  end  of  the  room. 


ON    THE    HEIGHTS  43 

"The  old  man,  his  father — he's  asleep  within, 
and  he's  noisy  if  anyone  wakes  him." 

That  then  was  why  I  should  speak  low.  I  un- 
derstood. I  had  met  such  old  men  before — 
Lears,  but  Lears  who  get  the  best  of  the  bargain, 
maintaining  their  rights  of  property  to  the  very 
day  that  they  have  to  step  into  the  grave.  We 
found  ourselves  speaking  in  whispers,  all  three 
of  us,  I  trying  to  explain  how  I  found  the  track 
to  their  lonely  door  and  they  wondering  how  I 
had  missed  the  wider  track  across  the  hills.  After 
all,  they  were  a  good-hearted  couple  and  could 
enjoy  a  chat — if  one  carried  it  on  in  whispers. 

The  man  raised  his  head  suddenly:  we  all  lis- 
tened. The  winds  were  coming  up  from  Bantry 
Bay,  they  were  roaring  upon  the  roof.  As  we 
listened,  in  flew  the  door  with  a  crash,  the  fire 
was  scattered  on  the  hearth,  the  sheep  dog  sprang 
from  his  sleep,  planted  his  legs  and  howled  at  the 
storm.  We  all  flung  ourselves  on  the  door.  In 
the  sudden  tumult  I  forgot  myself.  As  we  got 
the  door  to  I  shouted  with  vast  enjoyment: — 

"There !  there !  stay  outside  now — with  Ser- 
geant Mullery,"  I  added  under  my  breath. 

"Hush!  hush!  sir;  lave  ye." 

Both  man  and  wife  were  terrified,  it  seemed. 
They  were  looking  towards  the  end  of  the  room. 

I  put  my  hand  to  my  mouth,  hunching  my  shoul- 
ders, and  turning  like  them  towards  the  unseen 


44        THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

sleeper — how  we  leap  at  moments  back  into  our 
childhood!  But  too  late,  too  late.  Three 
dreadful  blows  were  struck  on  that  partition  to- 
wards which  we  were  all  looking,  and  an  aged  but 
vigorous  and  indignant  voice  cried  out  above  the 
storm  in  ringing  Irish: — 

"Am  I  to  be  kept  always  in  the  dark?  Ever 
and  always  !  Look  at  me,  and  I  for  the  last  hour 
killed  with  listening  to  your  foolery — and  dogs 
— and  giggling — and  the  stranger's*  voice  stun- 
ning me;  and  'tisn't  worth  your  while,  Shawn,  to 
come  in  with  a  little  word." 

Man  and  wife  were  trying  to  smile"  at  me;  but 
I  could  see  that  they  were  used  to  getting  the 
worse  of  it.  They  did  not  know  what  was  best 
to  do. 

"I'll  answer  him,"  I  said.  They  clutched 
me. 

"No,  no,"  they  were  whispering  warmly  in  my 
face;  "no,  sir;  no  sir." 

I  cried  out  in  Irish  as  ringing  as  his  own : — 

"You'd  drive  a  stranger  from  your  door,  this 
night?"  Half  in  jest,  half  in  earnest,  I  spoke  the 
words.  The  winds  wer-e  roaring  with  a  great 
voice;  I  could  hear  the  cataracts  pouring. 

"  'Tis  no  decent  person  would  be  travelling  the 
hills  this  night,"  I  was  answered,  and  there  was 
suspicion  and  challenge  in  the  tones. 


ON    THE    HEIGHTS  45 

"There's  a  more  decent  person  on-  your  floor 
this  night,"  I  answered  back,  and  in  spite  of  my- 
self my  voice  was  hard  and  rough,  "a  more  decent 
person  than  ever  walked  this  hungry  land  since 
St.  Finnbarr  left  it,  travelling  to  the  east." 

"Left  it  and  blessed  it,"  the  voice  answered  me 
in  triumph. 

"I  doubt  it,"  I  answered,  and  my  anger  was 
gone;  and  there  came  swiftly  over  me  a  joyous- 
ness  to  think  of  the  two  of  us  shouting  at  each 
other  there  in  that  lonely  land  with  the  roaring 
storm  outside,  grandest  of  orchestras. 

"I  doubt  it,"  I  cried,  in  a  great  voice. 

"He  did,"  h'e  answered. 

"I  doubt  it." 

"  'Tis  well  known;  the  authors  say  so!" 

My  heart  opened  to  him!  How  often  I  had 
heard  that  or  similar  phrases  from  his  like !  "Se 
adeir  na  h-ughdair  .  .  ." 

"If  he  did,  ye  ought  to  remember  it,  and  not 
drive  a  stranger  from.  .  .  ." 

"There's  no  one  doing  the  like;  but  haven't  I 
the  right  to  complain  if  my  son  will  not  tell  me 
who  'tis  comes  in  or  goes  out?  Come  in  to  me, 
Shawn,  and  let  you  make  the  stranger  his  meal, 
Nora." 

Shawn  went  in  to  him,  having  first  looked 
despairingly  at  his  wife,  who  smiled  back  en- 


46        THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

couragingly.     I  felt  I  had  not  fathomed  any  one 
of  the  three  of  them. 

"He'll  be  in  his  sleep  in  a  moment,"  she  said 
to  me  in  a  whisper.  "You  gave  him  his  answer." 
She  was  more  courageous  than  the  man. 


Ill 

I  made  free  with  the  big  teapot  of  black  tea 
she  made  me,  and  with  the  lovely  bread,  laugh- 
ing to  myself  and  yet  wondering.  After  a  while 
Shawn  returned  to  us  on  tiptoe  from  the  old 
man's  room,  and,  silenced,  we  could  hear  the  deep 
and  vigorous  breathing  of  his  father. 

I  began  telling  them  of  the  detestable  war 
bread  the  people  in  the  cities  and  towns  had  to 
eat,  and  of  the  great  scarcity  of  everything 
among  them;  they  sighed  over  them,  the  poor 
creatures !  And  so  the  night  passed.  I  began  to 
wonder  why  they  did  not  suggest  retiring, 
for  it  was  now  near  midnight.  I  began  to 
yawn  involuntarily,  and  to  measure  the  settle 
with  my  eyes.  I  had  often  slept  on  one.  They 
were  again  confused.  At  last  the  man,  who  was 
certainly  an  extraordinarily  gentle  creature, 
touched  my  sleeve  shyly  and  said:  "The  only 
place  we  have  for  you  to  sleep  in  is  with  himself," 


ON    THE    HEIGHTS  47 

he  nodded  towards  the  partition.  I  was  just 
about  to  say,  "What  about  the  settle?"  when  I 
thought  suddenly  that  there  were  but  the  two 
rooms  in  the  house;  I  glanced  about  and  saw  that 
the  press  on  which  the  candle  was  lighting  was 
of  course  a  folded-up  bedstead.  Yet  I  didn't 
answer:  I  did  not  relish  the  thought  of  sleeping 
with  a  person  I  had  just  quarrelled  with. 

"You  could  slip  in — quietly.  He  sleeps 
sound." 

I  smiled  at  him. 

"Go  in,"  I  said,  throwing  myself  erect,  "and 
tell  him  the  police  and  the  soldiers  are  on  my 
track,  and  see  what  he'll  say?" 

I  felt  sure  that  anyone  who  kept  the  "authors" 
in  his  thoughts  would  not  refuse  a  corner  of  his 
bed  to  a  rapparee.  I  was  surprised  how  they 
took  my  words!  Had  they  not  known  it? 

"No,  no,"  they  both  cried  warmly  at  me;  "not 
that  way  at  all,"  the  man  moved  about  the 
flags  in  trouble. 

"  'Tis  better  say  no  word  about  the  soldiers  or 
police  at  all,"  the  wife  urged;  "only  that  'tis  how 
a  tourist  is  after  losing  his  way  in  the  fogs,  a 
tourist  was  fishing  in  Loch  Fada.  Go  on, 
Shawn,  and  tell  him  that;  'tis  a  story  will  do  no 
one  any  harm." 

I  consented,  and  Shawn  went  very  timidly  into 


48        THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

his  father's  presence.  We  listened;  yet  there 
was  no  noise  between  them,  no  squabbling  at  all. 
He  came  out  gesturing  that  the  way  was  clear. 
About  midnight  I  stepped  very  carefully  over  the 
old  man's  rather  bulky  figure,  to  take  my  share  of 
the  huge  old  bed. 

"Out  the  candle,"  he  growled  at  me. 
Timidly  enough  I  mumbled  an  apology,  and  did 
so.  Outside,  the  winds  shrieked  among  the  up- 
land gullies  and  the  waters  fell  in  them. 


IV 

I  awoke  with  some  dim  feeling  of  annoyance. 
It  was  pitch  dark  and  the  storm  was  still  roaring, 
but  near  by  was  an  unceasing  whisper,  a  sharp 
hissing  of  breath  between  teeth  and  lips :  the  old 
man,  hunched  up  in  the  bed,  was  praying.  I 
dozed  off  again,  and  again  I  woke,  and  the 
hissing  was  still  going  on  beside  me.  He  was,  I 
suspected,  carrying  out  a  practice  of  fifty  or  sixty 
years'  standing.  To  the  roaring  winds  outside 
he  was  deaf:  he  knew  their  voices  better  than  I. 
I  was  listening  to  them,  to  him,  thankful  for  the 
nest  of  warmth  and  peace  I  found  myself  in.  I 
would  occasionally  hear  the  rattle  of  his  beads, 
and  from  the  sound  could  guess  at  their  huge  size. 


ON    THE    HEIGHTS  49 

Dozing  again,  I  heard  him  gather  them  up;  and 
then  I  am  quite  clear  I  heard  the  words,  "... 
and  for  the  souls  of  all  the  men  they  put  to  death 
in  Dublin!"  His  voice  fell  to  a  whisper,  and  a 
vigorous  "Amen !"  finished  his  prayers,  as  with 
a  clasp.  He  shrugged  the  clothes  up  about  his 
shoulders,  groped  under  the  pillow,  and  settled 
himself  to  sleep.  A  sudden  rush  of  thought  and 
feeling  swept  over  me.  "The  souls  of  all  the 
men  they  put  to  death  in  Dublin,"  I  repeated,  and 
I  thought  of  this  lonely  old  man  praying  for  them 
in  this  unknown  cabin  on  the  uplands.  In  the 
phrase  of  the  people,!  was  glorified  to  think  of  it. 


Yet  presently  I  fell  to  wondering  why  his  son 
and  his  son's  wife  had  implored  me  not  to  tell 
him  that  I  was  a  hunted  man  on  the  hills.  I 
could  not  understand  it. 


VI 

I  awoke  in  the  bright  morning  to  find  the  old 
man's  fingers  touching  and  feeling  my  brow  with 
great  gentleness.  He  started  when  my  eyes 


5P        THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

glared  up  at  him.  It  was  then  I  saw  him  for  the 
first  time  with  any  distinctness.  He  had  a  fringe 
of  white,  wool-white  whiskers  in  under  his  shaven 
chin;  he  looked  like  a  shepherd  in  an  old  play  or 
in  a  picture;  but  there  was  a  keenness  and  a 
sharpness  about  the  brow — an  alertness  that 
made  one  forget  this  first  thought  of  him.  Seeing 
how  he  had  started,  I  greeted  him  in  good  Irish. 
He  smiled  at  me : — 

"You're  no  tourist  was  fishing  Loch  Fada,"  he 
said,  knowingly.  I  listened  a  moment;  there  was 
no  stir  in  the  room  outside.  I  felt  sure  they  had 
not  yet  risen,  had  not  yet  been  speaking  to  him. 
The  sun  was  bathing  the  hills,  a  robin  w*as  singing. 
Even  in  the  little  darksome  cabin  there  was  an 
air  of  freshness  and  gladness. 

"What  am  I,  then?"  I  said. 

"You're  no  tourist,"  he  said  again,  with  the 
same  wise  and,  I  thought,  encouraging  smile. 

"But  what  am  I?" 

"I'll  tell  you:  you're  one  of  them!"  He  gave 
me  a  slow,  antique  wink;  it  was  like  a  gesture. 
"I  was  one  of  them  myself  and  I  young,"  he 
added.  He  flung  up  his  head. 

"It  wasn't  I  told  you  I  was  a  tourist." 

"No,  'twas  himself.  But  you,  'twas  yourself, 
and  no  one  else,  told  me — told  me  what  I  know. 
Brother,"  he  said,  using  the  familiar  word 
among  the  Gaels,  "you  were  dreaming  .  .  . 


ON    TH  E    HEIGHTS  51 

powerful  dreams !"  What  wild  foolery  had  I 
been  crying  out  in  my  sleep !  His  eyes  were  full 
of  vision — my  dreams  ! 

"  'Twill  come  to  pass,"  he  said,  "the  authors 
foretold  it."  I  had  no  reply,  except  to  stare  at 
him,  his  face  aglow,  bending  upon  mine. 

"But  isn't  this  a  pitiful  thing,"  he  grew  mourn- 
ful above  me,  "that  man  outside,  that  son  of 
mine — he's  a  thing  without  courage,  he's  like  a 
sheep  after  being  worried  by  the  dogs,  he  is  that! 
He'd  be  afraid  to  hang  a  bit  of  green  on  the  door, 
or  to  keep  a  gun  in  the  house.  I'm  sick  and 
tired  of  him.  But  look,  forgive  me  the  welcome 
I  gave  you :  these  times  there  do  be  men  in  plain 
clothes  going  from  house  to  house,  innocent- 
looking  slobs  of  men,  gathering  up  information, 
and  that  pair  outside,  I  must  be  watching  them. 
'Tisn't  too  much  I'd  tell  them."  He  repeated 
that  solemn  wink  of  his. 


VII 

I  left  him  still  in  his  bed,  and  I  sat  at  breakfast 
with  the  two  others. 

"You  got  on  all  right  with  himself?" 

"I  did,  I  did,  then." 

"He's  a  bit  cross  sometimes:  he  was  a  Fenian 
in  the  old  days." 


52         THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

"He  told  me  so." 

They  looked  sharply  at  me.  They  were 
wondering  how  much  he  had  told  me.  And  in 
that  state  of  mind  I  left  them. 


COWARDS 


ROSSADOON  is  a  promontory  on  the  Kerry  coast. 
It  ends  in  two  blunt  points  that  are  not  unlike  the 
unshapely  fingers  of  a  giant's  hand  in  a  Scandi- 
navian story,  only  that  one  of  them,  that  on  the 
northern  side,  is  bigger  in  every  way  than  the 
other,  built  up  of  huger  cliffs,  and  so  higher  and 
freer  of  the  winds  and  the  clouds.  Yet  it  was 
that  northern  point  that  the  hardy  people  of  old 
chose,  when  Christianity  was  still  young  in  the 
land,  to  give  to  God,  building  their  little  stone 
church  of  four  simple  walls  upon  it,  and  burying 
their  dead  between  that  little  church  and  the  steep 
edge  of  the  cliff.  Of  that  early  church  only 
fragments  of  broken  walls  remain;  hundreds  of 
years  must  have  passed  since  Mass  was  last  sung 
there  above  the  sea ;  but  the  crowded  gravestones, 
many  of  them  too  neat,  too  new,  tell  us  that  the 
people  of  Rossadoon  lay  their  dead  of  to-day  with 
those  that  died  over  a  thousand  years  ago.  Too 
neat,  too  new,  indeed,  those  shapely  stones;  and 

55 


56        THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

those  on  which  one  meets  with  such  an  inscription 
as: — 

"Sacred  to  the  memory  of  John  O'Riordan,  of  New 
Inn.  .  .  .  Erected  by  his  son,  Michael  J.  O'Riordan, 
of  Portland,  Maine,  U.  S.  A." 

those  are  seldom  in  keeping  with  the  place.  Yet 
there,  on  North  Point,  among  the  crowded  graves, 
will  soon  be  erected  a  monument  far  bigger,  far 
richer  than  any  of  those  that  American  dollars 
have  paid  for.  It  will  be  set  up  above  the  grave 
of  Tomas  O'Miodhachain,  and  the  inscription, 
in  the  purest  of  Gaelic  phrasing,  will  tell  how  he 
died  in  Mountjoy  Prison  for  sake  of  that  land 
for  which  so  many  others  like  him  have  died  in 
every  age. 

And  so  Tomas  O'Miodhachain  is  gone  home 
for  ever  to  North  Point,  in  Rossadoon — lying 
within  ten  fields  of  where  he  was  born. 

Colonel  Hastings,  too,  has  gone  home,  as  if 
for  ever,  it  seems,  to  his  old  grey  weather-beaten 
house  in  South  Point.  And  it  was  on  the  self-same 
day  that  those  two  men  of  Rossadoon  went  home 
— the  rebel  and  the  colonel.  But,  as  for  that 
bright-faced  boy — the  colonel's  only  son,  Edward 
Pendrift  Hastings,  who,  in  a  certain  way,  saw 
them  home — he  had  gone  home  before  either  of 
them,  not,  however,  to  South  Point  with  his 


COWARDS  57 

father,  nor  to  North  Point  with  the  rebel:  in  a 
soldier's  grave  he  rests,  not  far  from  Arras. 


II 

It  was  on  a  day  of  bright  grey  mists,  those 
mists  that  seem  to  hide  not  one  but  many  suns, 
that  the  poor  wasted  body  of  the  rebel  was 
brought  by  train,  like  any  other  dead  thing,  to 
Cappaban.  There  its  guard  of  young  Republican 
Volunteers  from  Dublin  delivered  it  into  the 
keeping  of  the  local  company  of  Republican 
Volunteers  from  Rossadoon.  The  funeral  pro- 
cession was  soon  faced  to  the  west,  faced  against 
that  straggling,  winding,  up-and-down  hillside 
road  of  rock  and  shale,  which,  growing  ever 
narrower  and  narrower  for  seven  miles,  passes  at 
last,  as  a  mere  track  in  the  heather,  between 
broken  walls  into  the  graveyard  on  the  Point.  At 
the  start  there  seemed  to  be  three  funerals  rather 
than  one :  in  the  middle  of  the  road  the  gathered 
Volunteer  companies  of  the  whole  countryside 
marched  evenly  and  compactly,  far  too  numerous 
and  too  fierce-minded  to  take  any  check  from  the 
squads  of  silent,  heavily-armed  police  that  were 
gathered  at  every  corner  of  the  road, — marched 
with  pipe  music  and  draped  drums  and  draped 


58        THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

flags,  the  coffin  in  the  midst  of  them,  wrapped  in 
the  bright  Republican  colours,  looking  like  an 
enamelled  jewel-case  against  the  hillsides,  dim 
and  grey  in  the  mists.  But  on  either  hand  of  the 
steady,  disciplined  marching  of  the  Volunteers 
there  streamed  along  an  irregular  crowd  of  the 
people  of  the  countryside:  men,  women  and 
children,  old  and  young,  with  here  and  there  an 
old  farmer  from  the  hills  on  horseback,  his  brain 
alight  and  fiery  with  memories  of  other  fights, 
other  heroic  deaths,  other  memorable  funerals. 
Later  on,  those  horsemen,  and  indeed  the  whole 
throng,  would  of  themselves  form  too  into  pro- 
cessional order  and  take  their  place  behind  the 
drilled  men  about  the  coffin,  but  at  the  start  the 
three  bodies  moved  along  the  road  in  a  silence 
that  was  full  of  hidden,  fiery  thoughts,  as  the 
mists  were  full  of  hidden  suns. 

The  countrymen  from  Cappaban  and  Ross- 
buidhe  and  Rossadoon  itself,  although  they  gave 
every  heed  to  it,  could  not  march  like  the  pale- 
faced  men  who  had  brought  the  body  with  them 
from  Dublin;  but  ever  since  Tomas  O'Miodha- 
chain  himself  had  left  them  two  and  a  half  years 
before,  their  drilling  had  been  neglected;  and 
many  a  one  of  them,  now  swinging  awkwardly 
along,  had  a  thought  that  the  lifeless  clay  in  their 
midst  was  conscious  of  this  lack  of  training  in  their 


COWARDS  59 

bearing,  was  somehow  rebuking  them.  Yes,  the 
Dublin  men  marthed  better;  but  it  was  not  that 
alone  that  set  them  apart,  not  that  alone  but  this: 
they  had  realised,  unlike  the  men  in  faraway 
Kerry,  what  death  by  starvation  in  a  cell  in 
Mountjoy  really  means,  had  weighed  it  against 
the  other  deaths  that  are  incident  to  rebels — 
death  in  a  hot  fight,  death  in  the  dawn,  facing  a 
firing  squad,  death  on  the  scaffold — and  come  to 
feel  that  more  than  any  one  of  them  it  tested  the 
spirit  within,  the  spirit  itself,  unaided  and  alone. 
As  they  marched  now  in  unbroken  silence,  without 
the  least  glancing  to  right  or  left,  their  lips 
seemed  uniformly  thin  and  set,  their  brows 
uniformly  pale  and  bent  and  hard,  for  each  of 
them  was  marching  on  in  the  silence  of  loneliness. 
And  somehow  as  the  march  went  steadily  on, 
climbing  the  hill  with  no  abatement  of  speed  or 
steadiness,  this  realisation  of  what  death  in  prison 
really  means,  had  meant  to  their  own  neighbour's 
boy,  began  to  rule  in  the  spirit  of  the  whole 
throng,  as  well  as  in  that  of  the  men  of  Dublin,  to 
unify  them,  to  silence  them,  to  stiffen  them.  Even 
from  a  distance  one  seemed  to  notice  it,  to  yield 
to  it,  as  to  something  severe  an:d  terrible  and 
threatening;  and  then  were  it  not  for  the  relief 
and  the  release  that  was  in  the  music  of  the  pipes 
one  would  scream  out. 


60        THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

III 

Colonel  Hastings,  sitting  high  in  his  trap,  did 
not  notice  it,  did  not  cry  out,  did  not  even  catch 
the  wild  music  that  was  shrilling  from  sea  to  sea. 
He  had  been  away  from  home  for  the  past  fort- 
night, had  been  to  the  War  Office  in  London, 
was  now  making  for  home  in  a  chilling  silence. 
He  would  have  driven  straight  on  and  into  the 
procession,  his  road  cutting  across  its  road,  if 
his  man  had  not  touched  his  arm : — 

"That's  the  funeral — the  crowd  passing " 

"What  funeral?"  The  colonel  was  staring  and 
frowning  at  the  black  mass  streaming  so  earnestly 
forward. 

"The  Sinn  Feiner's  funeral,"  the  man  answered, 
timidly.  "Tom  Mehigan's  funeral,  the  boy  that 
died  in  Dublin,  in  prison.  They  wouldn't  like 
us  to  break  into  them.  .  .  ." 

Then,  perhaps,  the  colonel  did  notice  that 
strange  stiffness,  that  severity  in  the  marching. 

"Why  should  I?"  he  whispered,  in  so  strange 
a  voice,  so  choked  a  voice,  that  his  man  glanced 
up  at  him  from  under  his  brows. 

And  so  they  sat  there,  the  colonel  two  cushions 
higher  than  his  man,  while  the  funeral  flowed  by 
below  them  on  the  road.  The  discoloured  leaves 
of  the  trees  dropped  their  mist-drops  noisily  about 
them. 


COWARDS  6l 

Were  he  half  the  age  he  was,  the  colonel  might 
have  stepped  into  the  ranks  of  the  pale-faced  men 
and  marched  with  them.  Like  theirs,  his  brows, 
too,  were  bent,  his  lips  thin  and  set,  his  eyes  as 
hard  as  steel.  And  the  voice  that  had  whispered 
so  strangely  went  well  with  this  look  of  inhuman- 
ity, so  new  to  him.  It  was  this  star-like  gleam, 
this  aloofness  from  the  common  warm  stir  of  life, 
that  made  him  akin  to  the  young  men  from  Dub- 
lin. His  man,  daring  to  touch  his  sleeve,  had 
expected  from  him  an  outburst  of  fury,  at  the 
least  a  snap  of  vexation.  His  mind  was  full  of 
the  last  meeting  between  the  rebel  and  the  colo- 
nel. It  was  at  the  one  recruiting  meeting  that 
was  ever  held  in  Rossadoon.  The  colonel  had 
made  his  speech,  had  announced  that  he  was  send- 
ing his  only  son  into  the  army,  had  asked  the 
young  lads  of  the  place  to  step  forward  like  men 
and  join  him.  Not  one  had  stepped  forward. 
How  the  colonel's  eye  blazed  up,  how  he  trem- 
bled with  passion,  how  he  flung  his  head  in  the 
air! 

"I  tell  you  what  you  are,  you're  cowards,  cow- 
ards!" And  then,  his  man  remembered  now, 
Tom  Mehigan,  in  one  spring,  had  leaped  on  to 
the  fence  beside  the  colonel: — 

"  'Tis  the  cowards  that  go !" 

"  'Tis  the  cowards  that  stay!" 

"  'Tis  the  cowards  that  go!" 


62         THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

"  'Tis  the  cowards  that  stay — by  their  dams!" 

Too  excited  to  catch  up  the  phrase  or  its  mean- 
ing, Tomas  O'Miodhachain  had  then  gripped  the 
colonel's  shoulder  with  his  left  hand,  had  flung 
his  right  towards  the  son  who  stood  pale-faced 
by  in  silence: — 

"  'Tis  he's  the  coward  to  go !" 

"  'Tis  you're  the  coward  to  stay — you  and  your 
men,"  and  the  colonel  wrenched  himself  free  and 
raised  his  whip. 

"Strike  me !" 

Then  many  men  had  leaped  in  between  them, 
the  police  inspector  led  the  colonel  to  his  trap 
(this  self-same  trap),  his  men  formed  themselves 
into  a  thick  body  around  it,  and  the  Loyalist  party 
moved  off,  the  whole  meeting  remaining  behind 
them  intact,  holding  the  ground  as  won,  and 
chanting  in  a  single  voice : — 

'Wrap  the  green  flag  round  me,  boys, 

To  die  were  far  more  sweet, 
With  Erin's  noble  emblem,  boys, 
To  be  my  winding  sheet." 

It  was  wise  for  Tomas  to  leave  Rossadoon 
after  that;  he  went  to  Dublin. 

All  this  was  present  to  the  old  man  when  he 
touched  the  colonel's  sleeve;  but  as  soon  as  he 
heard  his  master's  voice,  "He's  after  hearing 
some  terrible  thing  in  London,"  he  thought,  and 


COWARDS  63 

he  glanced  timidly  from  under  his  brows  at  the 
frozen  face. 

It  was  to  get  some  account  of  his  son's  death  in 
France  that  the  colonel  had  gone  to  London.  It 
was  thought  he  would  even  go  to  France.  Here 
he  was  come  back  far  sooner  than  expected,  cold 
and  silent  and  aloof. 


IV 

Until  they  stopped  up  to  let  the  crowds  pass, 
the  colonel  had  not  spoken  one  word,  had  glanced 
neither  to  the  right  hand  nor  to  the  left  hand. 
He  did  not  even  raise  his  eyes  when,  after  long 
driving,  his  own  place,  still  three  miles  away,  rose 
up,  like  an  old  grey  castle,  against  the  rim  of  the 
grey  sea.  He  had  only  stared  straight  ahead; 
and  yet  for  all  that  would  have  driven  into  the 
midst  of  the  crowds  on  the  road  if  his  man  had 
not  checked  him.  That  old  man,  Maurice  Di- 
neen  was  his  name,  gave  his  master  the  true  pity 
of  the  old  retainer.  Indeed  he  had  to  struggle 
with  himself  to  keep  his  silence.  He  could 
have,  and  how  willingly  would  have,  broken  out 
into  a  wild  lament  for  the  dead  boy,  in  which 
there  would  be  thoughts  and  words  and  phrases 
that  no  Hastings  that  ever  lived  could  make  him- 
self for  his  relief.  He  had  known  the  boy,  had 


64        THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

loved  him,  and  loved  him  now  the  more  for  his 
hard  fate,  of  which  he  had  thoughts  that  must 
never  be  expressed. 

Beyond  count  of  time  now,  a  tiny  drop  of  reb- 
elly  Irish  blood  would  suddenly  leap  to  the  sur- 
face in  every  generation  of  the  Hastings.  As  in 
many  another  of  the  Garrison  houses,  their  mem- 
oirs are  parti-coloured.  There's  the  story  of  one 
of  them  who  fought  for  King  James  at  the  Boyne, 
of  another  who  died  fighting  with  the  Wild  Geese 
against  the  English  at  Fontenoy,  of  another  who 
held  lands  in  trust  for  the  Papists  when  to  do  so 
was  a  high  crime,  of  another  who  voted  against 
the  Union.  And  fortune  has  taken  care  that 
whatever  there  is  of  romance  in  these  memoirs 
hangs  around  those  wilder  bloods  that  would 
not  keep  the  safe  path.  When  the  young  heir 
went  to  Trinity,  what  must  he  do  but  begin  to 
learn  Irish  and  lisp  sedition !  The  old  people  at 
home  shook  their  heads  and  smiled;  "A  true  Has- 
tings!" they  said.  Then  came  the  war;  and  the 
young  lad  was  brought  home  and  sent  into  the 
army.  If  he  showed  no  inclination  for  it,  he 
made  no  protest.  Every  other  Garrison  House  in 
the  country  was  doing  the  same.  After  all,  that 
was  the  tradition.  And,  once  in  the'  army,  he 
went  through  the  mill  of  training  with  such  high 
spirits  and  brightness  that  th'e  old  colonel,  in  his 
delight,  used  to  read  his  letters  to  his  visitors. 


COWARDS  65 

slapping  the  pages  with  the  back  of  his  fingers  and 
saying:  "A  true  Hastings."  But  when  the  Ris- 
ing came  and  the  sixteen  leaders,  some  of  whom 
the  lad  had  met  with  in  the  literary  circles  of  Dub- 
lin, were  executed,  group  after  group,  the  colonel 
no  longer  read  to  his  visitors  the  letters  that  were 
still  coming  to  him  from  France,  for  they  had  be- 
come critical  and  snappish — and  occasionally 
framed  little  lyrics  and  sonnets  on  Ireland — A 
true  Hastings! 


The  procession  had  all  but  passed.  Groups  of 
women  in  black  shawls  and  black  cloaks  were  fuss- 
ily making  forward,  five  or  six  abreast,  to  be  in 
time  for  the  last  prayers  and  the  shots  above  the 
dead.  They  were  too  hurried  for  speaking.  But 
a  rough  man's  voice  began  to  cry  out,  incoherently 
and  indistinctly,  so  that  it  was  hard  to  catch  his 
words:  "I'm  as  worthy  to  walk  as  any  of  ye! 
'Tisn't  Tom  Mehigan  would  reject  me — the  Lord 
have  mercy  on  his  soul.  I'm  as  good  an  Irish- 
man as  any  of  ye,  and  Tom  wouldn't  deny  that!" 
There  was  then  but  a  mumbling,  and  then  a  cry 
more  passionate  than  before:  "Don't  mind  me 
coat,  lave  ye !  Don't  mind  it.  Better  men  than 
me,  they  wore  it  and  had  to  wear  it.  Don't  mind 


66         THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

it,  lave  ye."  There  was  again  a  silence,  and  the 
very  end  of  the  procession,  old  men  limping  on 
sticks  and  little  girls  hurrying  them  forward,  went 
by,  too  earnest  to  notice  the  outcry  of  the  drunken 
soldier.  "I'm  as  ready  to  die  for  me  country  as 
any  of  ye.  But  no,  I'm  rejected!  The  little 
boys,  they  wouldn't  have  me,  I'd  disgrace  them! 
The  old  soldier  would  disgrace  them!"  There 
was  wild  indignation  and  surprise  in  the  words. 
The  colonel's  horse  was  now  slowly,  and  with 
nervous  forelegs,  stepping  down  the  steep  road. 
The  colonel  saw  the  open  road  below  him  clear 
for  a  moment,  but  suddenly  a  huge,  untidy  figure 
in  khaki,  with  a  red,  flushed,  dribbling  face,  came 
headlong  into  the  space;  staring  after  the  crowds 
ascending  the  road  from  him,  his  two  arms  wide 
in  the  air,  he  looked  like  a  blind  man  on  an  un- 
familiar Toad,  groping  and  sprawling.  He  was 
returning  on  his  phrases, "Don't  mind  me  coat, 
lave  ye;  better  men  than  me  had  to  wear  it." 
But  the  crowds  were  now  too  far  from  him;  he 
turned  and  lurched  to  the  corner  where  the  roads 
met,  and  was  about  to  fling  himself  there  on  the 
soft  grass  when  he  caught  sight  of  the  colonel. 
He  drew  himself  up,  steadied  himself,  and  a 
strange  and  troubled  look  struggled  in  his  eyes, 
and  his  poor  dribbling  lips  worked  a  little.  He 
saluted,  and  then,  as  if  that  was  not  enough,  he 
quickly  snatched  the  cap  from  his  head  a"nd  held 


COWARDS  67 

it  in  his  hands  against  his  breast,  as  the 
people  do  when  a  religious  procession  is  passing 
by.  The  colonel,  grey  and  cold,  still  staring  with 
fixed  eyes,  went  on  as  if  he  had  neither  seen  nor 
heard;  but  out  burst  the  drunken  voice  again, 
warm  and  broken  with  sympathy:  "Don't  mind 
them,  sir;  he  was  no  coward;  so  he  wasn't.  He 
Vvas  no  more  a  coward  than  that  boy  they're  bury- 
ing on  the  hill.  He  was  a  gentleman,  he  was, 
and  good  to  the  men,  and  if  'twas  fighting  for  the 
ould  land  he  was,  by  Christ,  they  wouldn't  have  to 
shoot  him  for  cowardice !" 

The  colonel  sprang  bolt  upright  in  his  trap, 
blind  and  deaf  and  maddened.  He  clutched  the 
whip  and  lashed  his  animal.  He  tried  to  speak 
to  it.  It  was  rearing  in  the  shafts,  its  head  toss- 
ing. "Home,  home!"  he  cried  to  it  at  last, 
hoarsely,  hardly  audible.  The  horse  leaped  for- 
ward and  flew  like  the  wind. 

And  so  the  colonel  lies  buried  in  the  old  grey 
house  on  the  South  Point,  almost  as  deeply,  it 
would  seem,  as  Tomas  O'Miodhachain  lies  bur- 
ied in  his  grave  on  the  North  Point,  or  his  own 
dishonoured  son  in  his  unmarked  sleeping  place 
in  France.  God  be  his  comforting. 


SEUMAS 


SEUMAS— I 
I 

WHEN  I  struck  on  him  he  was  shooting  through 
the  crowds  in  Patrick  street,  his  pale,  earnest, 
winsome  face  thrust  out,  his  lips  parted. 

"Not  so  fast,  not  so  fast,"  I  said,  holding  him 
up. 

"Oh!  Oh! — you'll  come?  You'll  be  very  use- 
ful!" 

Who  ever  refused  him!  His  shining,  long- 
lashed  eyes — too  large!  too  beautiful! — were  al- 
ready searching  my  face  for  consent;  his  slender 
hand,  his  delicate  fingers  were  touching  my  coat 
lapel. 

"Where?  where?"  I  laughed. 

The  pale  hand  leaped  from  me  like  a  spring 
and  feverishly  began  plucking  sixpenny  novels 
from  all  his  pockets,  within  his  coat,  without. 
Many  of  the  books  were  old  and  tattered,  many 
had  no  covers;  the  covers  of  the  others  were 
blood-red,  flaring,  with  the  author's  portrait  for 
centrepiece.  He  thrust  them  into  my  hands;  one 
or  two  of  them  fell,  and  "The  Baron's  Sons," 
"The  Baron's  Sons,"  "The  Baron's  Sons,"  I  read 
on  every  one  of  them. 

71 


72        THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

I  asked  him  what  in  the  name  of  Dr.  Maurus 
Jokai  did  it  all  mean. 

"Weapons  !"  He  was  still  searching,  his  head 
bent,  "bombs!  I'm  collaring  the  market  before 
the  censor  finds  it  out.  I  have  searched  all  Cork, 
all  except  two  little  shops.  Only  two  more.  And 
you'll  do  them.  You  will?  Or  look!  You'll 
do  the  one  in  Douglas  street;  I'll  take  the  other. 
I  know  the  poor  man.  He's  deaf.  'Tis  near  the 
North  Gate  bridge  -  >" 

"Wait,  wait,  give  us  a  chance.  I'm  to  get 
more  of  these?"  I  flapped  my  books  at  him. 

"Of  course;  and  hurry." 

"But  why?" 

"Because  the  censor  will  find  them  out,  and 


"But  what  for?" 

"You'll  understand.     Don't  believe  a  word  he 


says 

"Who?" 

"The  man  in  Douglas  street.  Shove  him 
about,  he's  frightfully  slow.  You  must  throw 
the  tables  and  chairs  aside — and  decanters. 
'Tis  behind  them  I  always  get  anything  I  want." 

II 

Of  course  I  went,  hot-foot.  No  one  ever  re- 
fused him.  As  Monica  O'Sullivan  used  to  say, 


S  E  U  M  A  S^I  73 

the  rhythm  of  him  was  Mozartian.  "Think  of 
Mozart" — this  was  her  way  of  putting  it — "for- 
get the  world  awhile — its  slow  pulse — go  to  him, 
his  music,  I  mean,  and  there's  Seumas!  The 
sunny  earnestness,  never  sour,  never  dark — even 
how  the  game  was  going."  A  true  description, 
and  it  explains  why  one  could  no  more  refuse 
oneself  to  him  than  to  Mozart.  For  a  moment 
you  would ;  but  then  you  threw  yourself  upon  him, 
coveting  burdens,  lest  he  might  think  you  were 
not  in  earnest. 

In  the  little  shop  in  Douglas  street,  after 
swallowing  pints  of  dust  and  getting  great  rhom- 
boidal  slices  of  it  on  my  shoulders  and  knees,  I 
hauled  out  two  new  sixpenny  copies.  I  wondered 
whether  Seumas  would  be  satisfied  with  such  a 
harvest;  anyway  I  went  to  our  rooms.  He  soon 
came  in.  He  looked  hungry  and  fagged,  all  ex- 
cept his  shining  eyes:  trafficking  in  dusty  second- 
hand bookshops  was  no  work  for  such  lungs  as 
his.  But  he  was  triumphant;  he  also  had  found 
two,  one  of  which  was  filthy  and  full  of  candle 
wax: — 

"This  is  for  myself,"  he  flourished.  "I 
wouldn't  part  with  it  for  the  world.  A  student's 
copy!  'Tis  stiff  with  midnight  wax  on  it — 
Sheares  street  tallow.  I'd  know  it  anywhere." 

I  threw  my  lovely  twins  on  the  table. 
"There!" 


74        THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

He  admired  them.     He  was  satisfied  with  me. 

"But  I'll  keep  this  for  ever:  it  smells  of  to- 
bacco." He  thrust  the  filthy  thing  into  a  deep 
inside  breast  pocket  where  he  usually  kept  a  num- 
ber of  Pearse's  pamphlets. 

"But  I  don't  understand;  what  are  you  going 
to  do  with  them — the  others?  You're  not  going 
to  burn  them?" 

"No;"  he  kept  on  slapping  them  free  of  dust, 
"  'tis  they'll  do  the  burning." 

"Now," — he  divided  the  heap,  giving  me 
the  cleaner  lot —  "if  you  meet  Murphy — John 
Francis — or  Hillary,  or  Tubby — you  just  deliver 
your  goods.  You'll  say:  'Hillary,  maybe  you  have 
never  read  Dr.  Maurus  Jokai's  great  book,  "The 
Baron's  Sons"?' — give  it  out  like  that,  very  seri- 
ously, and  he'll  take  it.  John  Francis — you  must 
manage  him  yourself.  But  don't  give  it  till 
he  promises  to  read  it." 

"But  they'll  meet;  they'll  suspect  something; 
they'll  smell  a  rat." 

"Ah,  they'll  have  come  on  Mausmann  by 
then!" 

"Mausmann!"  It  sounded  like  a  furtive  pun. 
I  stared  at  him. 

"For  the  sake  of  Mausmann  have  I  spent  my 
five  bob — except  Mausmann,  there's  nothing  in 
it.  See  here," — he  was  turning  the  pages  and 
talking  at  the  same  time, — "Mausmann  was  a 


SEUMAS— I  75 

student — look  here."     He  began  to  read;  I  read, 
too,  my  eyes  following  his  taper  finger: — 

"At  that  moment  there  appeared  from  the  opposite 
direction  an  odd-looking,  long-legged  student,  with 
three  enormous  ostrich  plumes  waving  in  his  hat  and 
a  prominent  red  nose  dominating  his  thin  smooth-shaven 
face.  A  tricoloured  sash  crossed  his  breast,  while  a 
slender  parade  sword,  girt  high  up  under  his  arm  to 
prevent  his  stumbling  over  it,  hung  at  his  side.  .  .  ." 

"There  you  are,"  cried  Seumas,  in  high  de- 
light; "he's  worth  a  battalion  to  us,  I  tell  you  he 
is.  That  nose  of  his,  and  the  plumes.  .  .  ." 

I  began  to  see  a  glimmer  of  an  idea  in  his 
scattering  of  Jokai's  book  among  his  fellow-stu- 
dents. They  are  not  great  readers,  they  come 
for  the  most  part  from  homes  quite  innocent  of 
books,  but  the  worst  of  them  would  read  a  novel, 
moreover  a  revolutionary  novel;  and  Seumas,  I 
took  it,  hoped  that  this  long-legged  student 
should  help  to  quicken  the  pace. 

A  student  known  as  "Commercial  Career" 
came  in,  and  I  saw  Seumas  present  him  with  a 
copy  not  without  some  ceremony.  "I  don't  know 
any  book,"  he  said,  with  great  seriousness,  "that 
gives  one  the  hang  of  that  blasted  Austro-Hun- 
garian  squabble  like  it — you'll  find  it  simplify — 
the  riddle  of  the  Hapsburgs,  I  tell  you.  .  .  ." 

"Commercial  Career"  looked  wisely  at  the  por- 


76        THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

trait  on  the  cover  and  said  with  his  solemn  smile, 
"Well,  I'll  sample  it,  yes,  I'd  like  to  see  what  Dr. 
Maurus  Jokai  has  to  say  for  himself."  He  makes 
jokes  like  that:  sometimes  you'd  think  he  was  a 
bishop. 

When  we  were  rid  of  him  I  asked  Seumas  what 
good  was  it  to  give  such  a  book  to  such  a  man. 
"Oh,  he'll  read  it.  He'll  take  notes.  Then 
he'll  give  it  to  some  fool  of  a  fellow  we  never 
could  get  at;  and  he'll  use  my  very  words,  or, 
this  is  what  he'll  say:  'I  know  no  book  that 
helps  one  more  thoroughly  to  realise  the  inner 
meaning' — Oh,  Lord!  Lord  I" 


III 

By  evening  I  had  my  dozen  Hungarian  novels 
scattered  among  the  boys — all  except  one.  To 
place  that  I  strolled  into  the  Club.  It  is  a  dingy 
house  in  a  back  street.  We  boast  of  it,  and  cer- 
tainly 'tis  macabre  enough  for  anything.  Before 
we  got  hold  of  it,  some  dreadful  murders  had 
been  committed  there;  but  it  would  almost  have 
done  without  the  murders — so  gruesome  is  it. 
In  the  one  small  flicker  of  gas,  the  most  one  could 
get  at  that  period  of  the  war,  it  looked  even  din- 
gier than  usual.  It  was  thick  with  shadows;  and 
in  these  shadows  I  saw  a  knot  of  students  huddled 


S  E  U  M  A  S— I  77 

together  under  that  one  jet,  some  of  them  up  on 
the  billiard  table.  The  midmost  man — he  had 
glasses  on  him,  with  eyebrows  raised  above  the 
rims — was  peering  into  my  book,  reading  it  for 
them  as  well  as  he  could.  Some  of  them  had 
their  faces  towards  me,  their  ears  sidelong  to- 
wards the  reader,  their  eyes  fixed  on  nothing. 

"Great  fudge !  great  fudge !"  they  cried,  wav- 
ing me  to  join  them.  The  reader  raised  his  eyes 
a  moment,  glared  at  me,  moistened  his  lips  and 
resumed: — 

"Hugo  Mausmann  stepped  forward  and  made  a  com- 
ical gesture,  indicating  his  desire  to  be  heard.  Deliber- 
ately drawing  out  his  snuff-box,  he  tapped  it  with  his 
finger,  and  proceeded  to  take  a  pinch,  an  action  which 
struck  the  spectators  as  so  novel,  under  the  circumstances, 
that  they  became  silent  to  a  man  and  they  permitted  the 
speaker  to  begin  his  inexhaustible  flow  of  doggerel. 
With  frequent  use  of  such  rhyming  catchwords  as,  'In 
freedom's  cause  I  beg  you  pause,'  'your  country's  fame, 
your  own  good  name,'  'our  banner  bright,  our  heart's 
delight,'  'we're  brothers  all  to  stand  or  fall,' — he 
poured  out  his  jingling  verse,  concluding  in  a  highly 
dramatic  manner  by  embracing  the  hussar  officer  at  his 
side,  in  sign  of  the  good  fellowship  which  he  described 
as  uniting  all  classes  in  the  brotherhood  of  freedom." 

They  awaited,  just  stirring  a  little  in  their  im- 
patience, the  fall  of  the  voice  at  the  end  (I  must 
say  Four  Eyes  read  it  well)  but  then  at  once,  as 


78        THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

if  the  same  thought  had  come  to  all  of  them,  the 
group  broke  and  a  great  cheer  rang  out.  "Maus- 
mann!  Mausmann! — hip!  hip!"  They  leaped 
from  the  tables  and  danced  about  the  room. 
Their  cheering  woke  the  dreary  old  house, 
woke  the  dark  old  street;  and  then  cracked  off 
into  strange  phrases  cried  out  in  all  the  accents 
of  Munster :  "Our  banner  bright,  green,  yellow, 
white!"  "To  stand  or  fall  and  damn  them  all!" 
"Sinn  Fein  abu!— and  high  time,  too!"  "We'll 
fight  again,  and  not  in  vain!"  "We're  not  beat 
yet,  don't  you  forget!"  and  then  a  sort  of  game 
was  struck  upon:  one  man  would  sing  out  a 
phrase,  and  the  others  would  find  its  fellow — 
"To  Roisin  Dhu!"  was  cried  out  and  found  the 
answer,  "For  ever  true !"  "We'll  hunt  the  Huns" 
— "With  our  good  guns!"  The  bedlam  was  ear- 
splitting.  "We'll  fight  for  them"  was  shouted 
several  times  before  it  found  its  answer.  "We'll 
fight  for  them—"  "We'll  fight  for  them  .  .  . !" 
"We'll  fight  for  them  .  .  .!"  Then  someone 
cried  "We  will  like  .  .  . !"  and  the  whole  crowd 
roared  in  a  frenzy  of  enthusiam  in  which  they 
embraced  the  hussars  at  their  side.  They  were 
shouting,  they  were  sputtering,  coughing  with 
their  backs  to  the  wall;  they  were  laughing  and 
brandishing  sticks  in  the  air,  and  Tubby  flourished 
his  Colt.  When  he  mounted  the  table  to  make 
them  his  speech — I  knew  it  by  heart — I  left  them. 


SEUMAS  —  I  79 

I  carried  the  picture  of  them  with  me — the 
bright  frenzy  of  them  there  under  the  flickering 
gas-jet,  in  that  shabby  old  room,  and  I  thought 
of  Mausmann's  end  in  the  story: — 

'What's  the  matter?" 

"Something  that  never  happened  to  me  before 
—I'm  killed!" 


IV 

I  ran  into  Seumas  and  told  him  how  they  had 
taken  Mausmann  to  their  heart.  He  was  de- 
lighted :  he  looked  for  results  far  beyond  my  ken- 
ning. And  then,  I  know  not  how,  we  drifted 
into  an  argument  on  the  Church's  inner  attitude 
towards  republicanism.  We  had  no  facts  to  go 
on,  and  we  found  this  out  for  each  other  after 
some  strenuous  hours.  I  also  found  out  (he 
never  would1)  that  we  were  standing  on  St.  Pat- 
rick's bridge,  that  a  cutting  wind  was  blowing  up 
the  river,  and  that  Seumas  had  been  coughing  the 
whole  time.  I  persuaded  him  to  go  to  his  lodg- 
ings in  Sheares  street,  that  he  was  not  needed  in 
the  club  that  night. 


The  next  day,  my  work  took  me  outside  the 
city,  and  kept  me  there  till  the  fall  of  night.  It 
was  into  a  dark  squally  mass  of  empty,  echoing 


8o        THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

streets  and  squares  I  made  at  last,  tired  of  the 
loneliness  of  the  dead  country.  I  longed  for  com- 
panionship— for  Seumas  by  preference,  or  Tubby, 
or  even  Hillary,  and  yet  it  was  none  of  these,  but 
Monica  O'Sullivan  herself  I  struck  against.  I 
could  hardly  credit  my  luck.  Of  Monica,  Seu- 
mas used  always  to  speak,  to  speak  quite  openly, 
in  the  phrase  Naisi  uses  of  Deirdre  in  Mr.  Yeats's 
play,  "My  Eagle  1" — and  we  never  cavilled  at  it. 
I  checked  the  phrase  on  the  tip  of  my  tongue,  for 
more  than  ever  her  pointed  chin  was  in  the  air, 
her  nostrils  sniffing,  her  eyes  firm  and  bright  with 
daring.  Was  ever  any  other  girl  so  much  of 
a  piece? — figure,  bearing,  voice,  spirit?  Her 
background  that  windy  night  was  one  of  the 
myths — the  story  of  Emer,  of  Fand,  of  Deirdre. 
She  greeted  me  in  Irish: — 

"You  look  tired?" 

"I  have  been  in  the  country  all  day  (My 
Eagle!)." 

"I  could  tell  you  have  not  been  with  the  boys, 
you  look  so  dull." 

"Thank  you  (My  Eagle),"  and  I  bowed. 

"I  mean,  you  need  tuning  up — I  have  just 
parted  with  them." 

"Make  allowance  (My  Eagle) — the  old 
harp " 

She  cut  me  short: — 


SEUMAS  — I  8l 

"Fact  is,  the  club  has  passed  a  stunning  res- 
olution— even  Seumas  is  satisfied." 

"Great  fudge!  Great  fudge!"  I  thought 
within  me;  what  I  said  was: — 

"This  is  Mausmann's  doing." 

"They  go  beyond  him:  he  wanted  only  an 
amended  constitution:  we  want  Liberty — Liberty 
sans  phrase." 

"But  he   helped — Mausmann   did." 

'Twas  coming  in  either  case.  We'll  tell  Seu- 
mas 'twas  Mausmann's  doing — 'tis  all  one.  It 
seems  that  we  students,  we  alone  are  speaking 
with  the  unfettered  voice  of  Munster."  She 
glanced  at  me,  a  challenge. 

I  spoke  some  dull  commonplace.  I  had  helped 
to  pass  so  many  such  resolutions  in  my  day  that  I 
could  not  fathom  how  this  one,  passed  at  a  meet- 
ing of  irresponsible  students,  made  such  a  differ- 
ence. 

"But  Seumas  says  'tis  wonderful,  wonderful." 

"So  'tis,  so  'tis;  the  students  here  twenty  years 
ago,  we  all  know  .  .  .  they  were  glad  to  be  mis- 
taken for  .  .  .  for  the  Ascendancy ! .  .  .  for  the 
little  English  .  .  .  the  bears,  as  our  Gaelic  poets 
used  to  call  them.  They  modelled  themselves 
upon  Trinity  ...  as  Trinity  models  itself  on  Ox- 
ford and  Cambridge — reactionaries !"  The 
speech  pleased  her. 


82        THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

"What  Seumas  sees  in  it  is  this:  We  have 
leaped  on  to  the  European  plane." 

I  thought  of  Europe  clutched  in  the  grip  of 
war.  I  said  nothing;  perhaps  I  smiled.  She 
spoke  on : — 

"Everything  that  happened  in  European  coun- 
tries struggling  to  be  free,  will  happen  here  hence- 
forth, so  he  says." 

I  thought  of  things  that  had  happened,  that 
were  always  happening  in  European  countries 
struggling  to  be  free — in  Russia,  in  old  Italy,  in 
Poland,  in  old  Holland — and  I  had  nothing  to 
say.  But  she  was  merciless: — 

"A  terrible  prospect — but  splendid,  splendid, 
the  end  will  be  the  same !" 

"Yes,  yes,"  I  said,  meaning  nothing.  (My 
Eagle !  my  Eagle  !  my  Eagle ! — the  look  of  her, 
so  firm  in  the  squally  night,  set  the  word  pulsing 
in  my  brain.) 

She  left  me;  she  had  to  attend  a  meeting  of  her 
friends  of  the  Cumann  na  mBan,  to  whom  a 
young  doctor  was  giving  a  series  of  lectures  in 
"First  Aid." 


VI 

I  then  found  myself  walking  very  quickly,  and 
for  no  reason.     Everywhere  was  darkness,  and 


SEUMAS  —  I  83 

the  boisterous  wind  had  its  will  of  the  streets, 
for  they  were  empty  except  for  the  English  con- 
script soldiers  who,  in  groups  of  five  and  six, 
wandered  about  in  silence.  Comrades  of  theirs 
with  machine  guns  were  ranked,  at  important 
corners,  and  in  the  side  streets  were  long  lines  of 
huge,  dark-clothed  policemen  ranged  against  the 
walls.  They  hardly  spoke  at  all,  and  when  they 
did,  they  spoke  in  whispers.  Their  hands  were 
nervously  playing  about  their  guns.  I  took  no 
account  of  them,  I  could  only  rush  quickly  from 
place  to  place,  dissatisfied  with  myself,  not 
daring  to  think  either  on  what  my  eagle  had  said 
or  on  herself.  Either  thought  would  call  up  the 
other:  I  could  not  rest  on  either;  I  was  not  at 
rest,  thinking  on  neither.  But  I  would  have 
sudden  inner  glimpses  of  her  as  she  swept  off 
from  me,  her  head  in  the  air,  ready  for  anything 
— My  Eagle! 

I  was  still  walking  quickly  yet  aimlessly 
through  the  dark,  blustery  street,  when  I  caught 
the  sound  of  cheering.  Somehow  I  was  glad.  I 
stood  still,  sniffing  the  air. 

"Young  man,  you'll  do  no  good  by  loitering 
there — the  other  side  of  the  bridge  would  be 
better  for  you." 

A  six-foot  policeman  was  frowning  at  me.  I 
threw  a  glance  at  him  and  made  towards  the 
cheering.  It  was  coming  nearer,  a  roar  and  a 


84        THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

song.  About  sixty  policemen,  marching  four 
deep  at  the  head  of  the  procession,  went  silently 
and  heavily  by,  in  their  great  belted  black  coats. 
Then  came  a  crowd  of  students  in  a  dense  mass, 
very  excited  and  fierce-looking.  They  carried  a 
great  tricolour;  its  springtime  colours,  when 
caught  and  bellied  in  a  gust  of  wind,  would  shine 
with  unexpected  brightness  in  the  odd  gleams  of 
the  electric  lamps.  Sharply  pointed  forward,  it 
seemed  to  hurry  everything  along.  They  were 
chanting  Peter  Kearney's  wild  ballad: — 

"No  more  our  ancient  sireland 
Shall  shelter  the  despot  or  the  slave"; 

and  the  dash  of  youth  was  in  their  limbs.  They 
were  celebrating  the  passing  of  their  resolution. 

One  of  them  fell  out;  he  had  been  seized  with 
a  fit  of  coughing.  I  went  towards  him.  I  knew 
it  was  Seumas.  He  was  bent  in  two,  and  yet  he 
would  laugh  out  at  me  "Great  fudge!  Great 
fudge!"  I  could  hardly  hear  him  in  the  stormy 
song  going  by.  At  last  I  said: — 

"This  is  a  terrible  night  for  you  to  be  out  in." 

"This  is  a  great  night,  a  brave  night,  a  bonny 
night — a  Russian  night."  The  cough  hindered 
him  again. 

"Better  go  home,"  I  said. 

"No,  no." 

"Well,  we'll  go  a  little  way  down  here  awhile." 


SEUMAS  — I  5 

I  dragged  him  from  the  crowd  down  a  little 
side  street.  He  began  to  recover,  to  stand  and 
look  back,  his  nostrils  in  the  air.  The  side  street 
certainly  was  very  dull  and  cold  and  dark.  But 
presently  there  was  wild  cheering,  then  screams, 
and  then  a  thick  crowd  of  men  and  girls  began  to 
race  by  us.  Stones  were  flung,  and  we  heard  a 
few  shots.  I  don't  know  what  had  happened.  I 
hastened  Seumas  as  fast  as  I  could,  but  we  heard 
screaming  all  round  us:  and  then  we  were  alone. 
Instinctively  we  drew  into  a  dark  doorway,  and  a 
moment  afterwards  the  police,  with  their  bay- 
onets far  out  and  their  heads  down,  swept  past. 
They  would  be  holding  both  ends  of  the  street  in 
a  moment. 

I  rapped  at  the  door  behind  us. 

"Who  is  it?     Who  is  it?" 

"Quick,  quick,"  I  said. 


VII 

A  young  woman  opened  it.  There  was  no 
need  to  explain;  Seumas  was  limp  with  coughing, 
and  he  was  still  coughing.  His  face  was  all 
sweaty  with  it.  But  he  smiled  at  the  girl,  and 
motioned  that  he  was  all  right. 

"Certainly,"  she  said,  when  I  asked  permission 
to  stay  until  the  police  had  gone. 


86        THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

She  brought  us  in  to  the  little  living  room, 
where  a  good  fire  was  burning.  Everything  was 
very  clean,  bright  and  homely — everything  was 
very  still  after  the  wild  stampede  outside.  A 
cradle  stood  near  the  fire,  and  a  very  old  woman 
sat  beside  it  on  a  low  stool.  She  looked  up  at  us 
with  a  wistful,  curious  expression,  kept  her  eyes 
on  us  for  quite  a  while,  and  turned  away  without 
a  word.  Her  hair  was  grey  and  thin,  and  her 
forehead  all  wrinkles.  The  young  woman's  back 
was  towards  us;  she  stood  above  a  kitchen  table, 
on  which  she  was  ironing  some  white  linens.  We 
felt  the  silence  of  the  place  and  wondered  at  it — 
felt  it  the  more  perhaps  since  from  far  away 
would  come  the  high-pitched  sound  of  cheering, 
singing,  and  cries,  with  vivid  suggestions  of 
trouble  in  them.  And  we  could  see  that  though 
both  the  young  and  old  woman  were  also 
attending  to  the  distant  tumult,  they  would  not 
for  some  reason  refer  to  it.  We  felt  those  few 
silent  moments  very  long:  our  brains  were  eager. 
Seumas  at  last  caught  my  eye,  and  turning  away 
nodded  towards  his  left-hand  side.  There, 
hanging  on  the  wall  in  a  brown  wood  frame,  hung 
a  cheap  enlarged  photograph  of  a  soldier.  The 
eyes  were  just  two  black  spots.  I  peeped  at  it; 
and  I  caught  Seumas  smiling  at  me  in  his  gentle 
way.  "Mother,"  cried  a  child's  voice  from  a 
side  room. 


SEUMAS  —  I  87 

The  young  woman  placed  her  iron  on  the  stand 
and  went  into  the  room.  "Yes,  yes,"  she 
whispered  querulously,  going  from  us,  and  I 
noticed  how  scared  she  looked.  The  old  woman 
bent  towards  us,  and  spoke  with  eagerness: — 

"Speak  to  her,  boys,  speak  to  her — her  man  is 
in  great  danger,  they  say — (she  nodded  at  the 
photograph  to  explain  her  words)  and  she's 
breaking  her  heart — and  all  the  confusion  and 
crying  and  running!"  She  shook  her  head 
hopelessly  and  stopped  and  began  to  stir  the 
cradle  and  to  croon  above  it.  We  knew  it  was 
true — what  she  had  said  of  the  poor  "Munster" 
being  in  danger.  That  very  morning  we  had 
read  of  their  being  in  the  operations  around 
Givenchy. 

The  young  wife  not  returning,  the  old  woman 
went  on  to  explain  how  her  man  had  come  to  join 
the  army;  and  there  was  nothing  new  in  the  ex- 
planation: it  was  the  old  tale  of  unemployment 
and  the  fear  of  the  break-up  of  the  little  home. 
"You  may  be  sure,  young  man,  'tisn't  for  love  of 
them  he's  fighting  for  them — whisht — she's 
coming — speak  to  her,  young  man."  She  was 
looking  at  Seumas. 

It  was  easy  enough  to  speak  to  her  for,  on  re- 
turning to  the  room,  she  brought  a  little  child  in 
her  arms,  a  little  girl  with  gipsy-like  eyes,  large, 
brown,  startled-looking;  she  couldn't  get  her  to 


88        THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

sleep,  she  said.  Seumas  rose  at  once  and  made 
free  with  the  little  one.  As  he  did  so  I  saw  the 
old  woman  peering  at  him,  at  his  wasted  cheeks, 
his  shrunken  frame.  And  my  thoughts  went 
back  at  once  to  the  swift-moving  band  of  students 
with  their  tricolour,  how  it  had  flung  him  aside,  a 
broken  soldier,  for  whom  they  could  not  wait.  I 
was  looking  at  him;  I  looked  at  the  poor  scared 
soldier's  wife  who  was  speaking  with  him.  The 
fright  was  beginning  to  lift  from  her  as  she  went 
from  incident  to  incident  in  her  husband's  long 
years  of  dealing  with  his  employers.  The  old 
woman  still  kept  peering  at  Seumas's  thin  face, 
thin  hands.  "I'll  make  him  a  cup  of  tea,"  she 
whispered  to  me  at  last,  as  if  we  had  been 
speaking  about  him. 

It  was  midnight  when  we  left  them.  The  city 
was  as  quiet  as  a  mouse.  The  streets  were 
empty:  even  the  winds  had  gone  away  home. 
The  moon  had  risen  and  was  now  laying  silvery 
tissues  on  spires  and  chimney  stacks,  on  corner- 
stones and  plinths,  and  across  the  streets  there  lay 
vasty  shadows,  sharp  and  great  and  thick,  un- 
broken by  any  spark  or  flash  or  glare  of 
business  lamp  or  street  lamp,  for  all,  on  account 
of  the  wide,  free  light  of  heaven,  had  been  put 
out.  Seumas  breathed  in  the  serenity  of  the 
night : 

"I  hope  any  of  the  lads  haven't  been  hurt,"  he 


SEUMAS  —  I  89 

said;  "and  that  poor  'Munster' — I  hope  he  hasn't 
been  blown  to  bits — that  photograph  doesn't  do 
justice  to  him,  I'm  sure." 

Like  two  tourists  who  have  arrived  at  their 
journey's  end  and  have  nothing  in  the  world  to 
do,  we  sauntered  about  the  streets,  holding  our 
cigarettes  daintily  in  the  air  and  blowing  out  long 
and  luxurious  puffs  of  fragrant  smoke.  Occa- 
sionally far  off  we  would  see  a  squad  of  police 
crossing  a  stretch  of  moonlight,  making  for  the 
barracks.  The  city  was  at  truce  until  the 
following  night. 

But  I  knew  that  Seumas,  between  his  luxurious 
puffings,  was  already  thinking  out  some  new  little 
scheme  to  keep  the  boys  from  flagging.  Yes, 
that  was  all  his  thought;  and  I  envied  him  his 
single-mindedness;  and  yet  could  not  help  saying 
to  him  as  we  parted: — 

"For  God's  sake,  Seumas,  lie  up  for  a  few  days 
and  put  up  a  few  pounds  of  fat."  He  looked  at 
me  and  smiled. 


SEUMAS— II 

I 

Now  for  Monica  O'Sullivan's  idea  of  him : — 

Last  night,  as  I  listened  to  a  rather  good  per- 
formance of  the  "Marriage  of  Figaro,"  it  came 
to  me,  Monica  O'Sullivan  of  the  Cumann  na 
mBan,  that  it  might  be  well  to  write  down  what  I 
knew  of  the  late  Seumas  O'Donovan. 

No,  he  was  nothing  of  a  musician,  he  neither 
sung  nor  played,  and  between  the  incidents  of  that 
lovely  opera  and  those  of  his  few  years  of  life 
there  is  no  affinity,  as  you  will  gather,  only  in  its 
rhythms — in  their  rhythms,  his  life  and  the  opera, 
is  there  anything  similar.  As  I  listened,  I  first 
from  sheer,  quiet  happiness,  rose  above  myself, 
wanted  to  speak,  to  touch  someone,  ever  so 
lightly — and  there  suddenly  was  Seumas!  I 
thought  my  heart  would  break. 

To  go  back.  I  was  swept  into  the  Republican 
Movement  by  the  events  of  Easter  Week;  it  was 
not  possible  to  resist  them.  Before  that  I  was 
much  the  same  as  any  other  young  girl  in  an  Irish 
city.  I  have  a  sister  in  a  convent,  another 
married,  a  brother  who  is  dead:  in  those  years  I 

go 


SEUM  AS — I  I  91 

used  often  to  think  on  them,  now  one,  then  an- 
other. I  read  whatever  novels  I  could  lay  hands 
on.  It  did  not  strike  me  that  it  was  only  a  very 
rare  one  of  them  that  got  within  the  skin  of  life 
as  Seumas  used  to  say.  I  hoped  to  be  married 
some  time — and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  But  then 
I  met  Seumas. 


II 

It  was  at  one  of  those  wild  meetings  of  protest 
that  followed  as  soon  after  the  execution  of  the 
Republican  leaders  as  the  people  of  Ireland  dared 
to  draw  their  breath.  That  night  we  had  speech 
after  speech,  I  remember,  one  more  impassioned 
than  another.  You  could  not  be  critical  when  the 
speakers  were  young  men  who  had  risked  every- 
thing, and  whose  only  desire  was  that  Banba 
would  one  day  accept  their  lives,  as  she  had 
accepted  their  leaders' — into  whose  vacant  places 
they  had  stepped,  though  all  too  young  and  inex- 
perienced— you  could  not  be  critical  if  sometimes 
they  flung  out  words  that  were  reckless  and  even 
savage.  We  made  no  mourning  that  night:  we 
roared  defiance  instead,  and  found  relief  in  the 
"Soldier's  Song" — the  Dublin  carpenter's  song 
that  had  been  sung  in  the  Post  Office  in  Dublin 
in  a  circle  of  fire.  We  were  conscious  that  a  new 


92        THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

spirit  of  self-reliance  and  discipline  and  faith  had 
come  into  Irish  life.  We  knew  we  could  trust 
one  another,  could  trust  ourselves.  We,  too, 
could  suffer. 

At  a  gap,  as  it  seemed,  in  the  proceedings  a 
young  man  with  a  brow  like  a  god's  but  with  a 
face  and  body  worn  to  the  bone,  stepped  across 
the  platform  and  whispered  to  the  chairman;  and 
the  difficulty  must  have  vanished,  for  the  business 
went  on  again  triumphantly. 

"There's  Seumas:  his  work  is  bearing  fruit," 
I  heard  a  man's  voice  beside  me.  I  riveted  my 
eyes  on  the  man  called  Seumas.  I  saw  him  disap- 
pear from  the  platform  almost  immediately. 
That  was  my  first  glimpse  of  him. 

I  was  alone,  and  I  had  to  leave  the  meeting  be- 
fore it  ended.  It  was  a  bleak  night — although 
it  was  the  month  of  May.  I  paused  in  the 
vestibule,  reluctant  to  face  it.  Then  I  stepped 
out. 

I  saw  a  figure  in  an  overcoat  leaning  with  its 
back  against  the  wall;  and  very  melancholy  it 
looked,  hunched  up  there  alone  in  the  gloom  after 
the  lights  and  sense  of  daring  within.  It  sprang 
suddenly  into  life,  stood  in  front  of  me: — 

"Are  you  unwell?  I  beg  your  pardon — you're 
not  unwell?" 

"Why,  no." 

"I  thought  you  might  have  had  to  come  out." 


S  E  U  M  A  S — I  I  93 

It  seemed  no  other  cause  than  illness  could 
have  brought  me  out.  I  explained  that  I  had  to 
get  home  at  a  reasonable  hour,  explained  also,  I 
couldn't  help  explaining,  how  splendid  it  all 
was,  and  how  sorry  I  was  at  not  being  able  to 
stay. 

"I'm  glad  you're  not  unwell,  anyhow,"  he  said, 
lifting  his  cap,  and  resuming  his  position  against 
the  wall.  At  once  he  looked  again  like  one  of 
those  night  watchmen  you  sometimes  come  on  in 
the  small  hours,  who  look  to  be  a  portion  of  the 
warehouse  they  protect. 

I  could  not  forget  him — his  curious  attitude 
of  loneliness  there  in  the  darkness,  cold  and 
buttoned  up,  aloof  from  the  wild  life  and  reckless 
spirit  within  the  building.  How  he  had  sprung 
at  me  ! — all  life  and  gentle  earnestness  and — why 
should  I  not  write  it? — charm! 


Ill 

I  was  not  long  in  the  movement  before  I  knew 
how  true  was  the  description  I  had  heard  of  him. 
He  pulled  a  hundred  strings,  yet  those  whom  I 
met  would  make  excuses  for  his  present  slackness! 
I  should  have  seen  him  in  the  dull  years  before 
the  Rising,  when  it  seemed  that  the  language 
revival  must  fail.  It  was  in  those  years  I  should 


94        THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

have  known  Seumas!  How  he  slaved  at  the 
ancient  tongue  himself,  delving  into  its  literature, 
and  in  the  light  of  that  literature  re-examining 
the  historians,  only  to  find  them  colossal  dunder- 
heads; how  he  would  gather  in  crowd  after  crowd 
of  boys  and  girls  to  learn  that  language,  only  to 
find  them  drift  away  again  into  the  unheeding 
mob !  Then  he  had  to  do  so  much  else :  rents 
for  the  club  rooms  had  to  be  paid,  meetings  to  be 
organised,  papers  to  be  squared,  politicians  to  be 
argued  with,  old  priests  to  be  mollified.  He 
would  write  long  controversial  letters  to  the 
papers,  over  most  respectable-sounding  names, 
proving  the  value  of  the  Gaelic  language  as  a 
commercial  asset,  as  an  instrument  of  culture,  as 
a  saving  grace  in  a  lost  world — and  he  would 
write  long  replies  to  them,  just  to  keep  the  pot 
boiling.  They  all  agreed,  the  letters  he  wrote 
over  the  signature,  P.  P.,  on  the  "Language  as 
the  Vehicle  of  the  Faith,"  were  the  gem  of  the 
collection;  they  dripped  unction  from  every 
phrase.  They  would  quote  them  to  me !  There 
was  no  need  for  them  to  tell  me  of  the  charm 
and  vivacity  with  which  he  had  done  these  things; 
I  had  now  come  to  know  him,  and  could  picture 
him  in  those  dull  days,  when  he  could  find  but 
few  to  help. 

He  was  frail  and  delicate;  and  I  soon  under- 
stood why  he  kept  outside  crowded  rooms  and 


S  E  U  M  A  S— I  I  95 

meetings:  he  was  husbanding  the  little  strength 
he  had  left. 

After  the  Rising  there  was  in  Ireland,  as  every- 
one knows,  a  sense  of  spiritual  exaltation  that 
laughed  all  the  wisdom  of  the  world  to  scorn. 
As  Seumas  put  it  to  me :  the  soul  of  Ireland  had 
been  more  deeply  influenced  through  the  hundred 
men  who  had  died  for  her  in  Dublin  than  the  soul 
of  England  through  the  hundreds  of  thousands 
who  had  died  for  her  in  France.  And  he  would 
add:  In  the  world  of  the  spirit  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  length  and  breadth;  it  is  not  numbers 
that  count,  not  volume.  But  I  pointed  out  to 
him  then,  and  he  complimented  me  on  my  insight, 
that  the  deaths  in  Dublin  had  evoked  the  memory 
of  all  the  countless  tragedies  that  had  taken  place 
in  the  long  drawn-out  fight  between  England  and 
Ireland.  Through  them  the  past  had  become 
alive,  visible  to  us  all.  The  warriors  of  old — the 
O'Neills,  the  O'Donnells,  the  O'Sullivans — they 
rode  the  land  again,  and  Tone  and  Emmet  were 
speaking  in  every  ear,  and  with  them,  the  name- 
less dead  that  had  fought  and  died  in  the  same 
fight.  So  that  volume  does  count  (I  would  say), 
but  he  would  answer:  No,  it  is  intensity  only 
that  counts — intensity  alone  can  raise  vision. 
Vision! — the  land  was  swept  with  it — our  lives 
were  dazzled:  we  lived  nobler. 

Seumas  was,  of  course,  the  embodiment  of  this 


96        THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

spirit  of  exaltation.  Words  poured  from  him — 
joyous  words.  Ireland  was  safe:  her  soul  was 
the  same  old  priceless  soul :  no  wealth  could  pur- 
chase it:  no  power  break  it.  And  since  every- 
body had  begun  to  learn  Irish,  it  seemed  that 
everybody  had  at  last  come  to  know  all  this. 
"Wait,"  Seumas  would  say,  "till  they  all  have 
read  Keating  and  David  Brudair  and  Pierce  Fer- 
riter  and  Sean  Clarach — then,  our  governors,  if 
we  still  have  governors,  we  can  break  them  like 
that" — and  he  would  break  a  match  in  his  fin- 
gers. 

Suddenly,  all  in  one  day,  scores  of  the  young 
men  were  arrested.  Squads  of  police  and  sol- 
diers, armed  to  the  teeth,  yet  nervous-looking  for 
all  that,  swept  into  the  workshops,  into  the  dra- 
pery stores,  and  brought  out  quite  young-looking 
lads  with  them  from  bench  and  counter.  They 
were  not  even  given  time  to  get  on  a  coat  or  over- 
coat. We  saw  them  being  marched  in  couples  or 
singly  through  the  streets  to  the  gaol — bright 
young  lads,  with  their  teeth  set  and  their  heads 
held  at  the  highest,  shining  with  pride ;  they,  too, 
had  been  deemed  worthy.  Banba  had  accepted 
them! 

Seumas  was  not  arrested.  Lily  Hegarty  and 
I  came  on  him  that  evening:  he  was  gliding  along 
swiftly,  furtively,  looking  very  depressed.  We 
ran  to  him. 


S  E  U  M  A  S — I  I  97 

"How's  this?'  Lily  burst  out,  "not  arrested; 
oh,  Seumas!" 

His  spirit  failed  him  for  a  moment.  He  had 
to  pull  himself  together.  "Oisin  i  ndiaidh  na 
Feinne"  (Oisin  in  the  wake  of  the  Fenians)  he 
said,  with  a  shrug  of  the  shoulders. 

There  was  no  explanation  for  it.  Ned  O'Brien 
had  been  arrested — poor  Ned !  Tubby  had  been 
arrested,  amid  great  cheering.  (What  will  he 
do  for  his  bottle  of  stout!)  Hillary  had  shown 
fight — who  would  have  expected  it?  They  had 
all  been  arrested.  The  gaol  was  thronged. 
They  could  now  be  heard  singing  their  rebelly 
songs.  They  had  turned  the  place  upside  down. 
"I  wouldn't  mind,"  he  said,  "but  I  have  been 
shadowed  since  Christmas !" 

We  knew  this:  we  had  seen  the  detectives  fol- 
lowing him,  waiting  in  doorways  while  he,  inno- 
cently enough,  went  into  a  shop  to  buy  cigarettes. 
We  had  often  shadowed  them,  just  for  sport. 
And  here  he  was  still  at  large!  We  could  un- 
derstand how  desolate  the  city  had  become  for 
him.  But  we  joked  him : — 

"You'll  never  get  over  this,"  Lily  said. 

He  could  make  no  answer.  We  saw  that  he 
would  prefer  his  own  company  to  ours.  We  left 
him. 

But  Lily  said,  when  we  had  gone  a  little  way : — 

"Poor  Seumas,  he^ll  soon  be  arrested — quite 


98        THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

suddenly,  and  there'll  be  no  release,"  and  then 
she  said  a  line  of  some  old  Irish  poem  which  I 
did  not  understand. 


IV 

That  night  I  leaped  from  my  sleep  right  out  on 
the  floor,  right  over  to  the  window — not  quite 
awake.  "Yes,  yes,"  I  was  saying,  like  a  fool.  I 
thrust  my  head  out  and  got  a  handful  of  gravel 
in  my  eyes : — 

"What  is  it?     What  is  it?" 
"Whisper,  he's  arrested,  Seumas." 
It  was  Lily's  voice.     I  almost  fell  with  fear. 
It  couldn't  be  that  he  was  dead.     "Quite  sud- 
denly," she  had  said  to  me  that  evening,  words 
that  were  in  my  mind  last  thing  and  I  lying  sleep- 
less in  bed. 

"Lily,"  I  said,  and  I  tried  to  keep  my  voice 
steady,  "is  he  with  the  others?" 

"Yes,"  she  whispered  up  to  me,  "going  in  his 
own  door  they  pounced  on  him — a  full  dozen  of 
them;  they  must  have  thought  him  a  desperate 
character." 

"Wait  a  moment;  I'll  be  down  to  you." 
"No,  no;  don't  come  down;  we're  going  off. 
You  and  I,  we're  told  off  to  see  after  his  food  in 
the  morning.     I'll  call  you  up  at  half-past  six." 


S  E  U  M  A  S — I  I  99 

They  went  off,  the  two  of  them — I  had  never 
asked  who  the  second  was.  I  got  swiftly  into  my 
bed,  trembling  from  head  to  foot,  my  teeth  chat- 
tering. I  clenched  my  fists,  trying  to  control  my- 
self. A  thousand  thoughts  swept  upon  me.  I 
saw  prison  walls,  cold  flags,  iron  bars — and  Seu- 
mas — a  poor  thing  of  skin  and  bones,  angular, 
very  pale — with  great  eyes.  And  I  here  .  .  . 
hugging  myself  into  warmth!  .  .  . 

There  was  great  excitement  in  the  morning 
while  we  prepared  the  food — which  we  knew  we 
would  be  allowed  to  carry  in  to  the  prisoners. 

Unlike  the  other  girls  who,  longer  in  the  Cu- 
mann  na  mBan  than  we,  were  quite  familiar  with 
the  ways  of  the  gaol,  we  went  through  the  early, 
quiet,  wide-open  streets  with  swiftness  and  height- 
ened colour.  We  spoke  in  whispers.  But  I  did 
not  speak  of  what  my  thoughts  overnight  had 
been.  As  ladies  of  the  Cumann  na  mBan  our 
part  was  to  be  cool,  business-like  and  brave.  We 
swung  up  the  Western  road. 

"Seumas!"  cried  Lily,  without  warning,  clutch- 
ing my  arm. 

There  he  was  bearing  down  upon  us,  his  wan 
and  fleeting  smile  showing  that  he  had  seen  us 
first.  The  collar  of  his  coat  was  turned  up  about 
his  throat,  and  he  looked  very  seedy,  as  if  he  had 


100      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

not  removed  his  clothes  or  slept  during  the  night. 
His  face  was  grey,  and  when  he  spoke,  his  voice 
was  only  a  thin,  hard  whisper.  His  fingers 
played  about  his  coat  collar,  keeping  the  warmth 
of  it  to  his  throat. 

We  guessed  what  had  happened  before  he 
spoke. 

"Rejected!"  he  said,  and  shut  his  lips. 

Lily  had  the  good  sense  to  say: — 

"Happy  man,"  and  she  rattled  on  quite  quickly, 
and  I  thanked  her  in  my  heart,  for  it  was  long 
before  I  could  trust  myself. 

"The  old  fool  of  a  doctor,"  he  said,  shrugging, 
"wouldn't  have  me  at  any  price — Good  Lord — 
sure  I  was  worse  three  years  ago  than  I  am  now. 
Lily,  you  remember,  wasn't  I?" 

She  joked  about  his  condition  three  years  ago; 
in  comparison,  he  was  now  a  Cuchulain. 

We  swept  him  into  a  little  favourite  restaurant 
of  ours  (we  had  to  knock  the  good  woman  up) 
and  did  our  best  to  rally  him  into  good  humour 
while  we  spread  our  luxurious  wares  (luxurious 
for  war  times)  before  him  on  the  table.  But  it 
was  long  before  we  succeeded ;  and  even  then  the 
gloom  would  suddenly  fall  again  on  him.  He 
washed  his  face;  and  meanwhile,  outside,  the 
streets  were  waking  up:  cars  and  waggons  were 
passing,  trambells  were  clanging  and  crowds 
were  hurrying  by.  The  sun  was  warm. 


SEUMAS  — II  101 

"Look  here,"  he  said  at  last,  "rise  up  now  and 
we''ll  have  a  long  walk  in  the  fields." 
And  so  we  had,  my  God !  my  God ! 


V 

Four  days  after  this,  Seumas  went  to  bed  at  the 
end  of  a  long  and  busy  day;  and  in  the  middle  of 
the  night  something  happened  to  him,  as  Maus- 
mann  said,  that  had  never  happened  to  him  be- 
fore. I  can  now  think  that  that  way  was  per- 
haps the  best. 


VI 

Thus  ends  Monica  O'Sullivan's  account  of  Seu- 
mas O'Donovan.  She  took  it  to  Hillary — Hill- 
ary of  all  men  in  the  world!  He  is  a  dandy, 
and,  like  all  dandies,  lacks  sensibility.  Yet  it  was 
to  him  she  took  it.  Perhaps  she  was  testing  it. 
He  brought  it  to  me. 

"She  wanted  to  know  would  it  do  for  our 
paper." 

"What  did  you  say  to  her?" 

"I  said  I  thought  it  too  feminine,  too  hectic." 

"Not  too  intimate?" 

He  glanced  at  me  sharply. 


102      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

"She  got  mad  with  me,  so  I  said,  to  show  her 
what  was  wrong  with  it,  'One  would  think  you 
were  engaged  to  him !'  ' 

"And  she?" 

"She  nearly  bit  me.  'Thanks!'  she  said,  and 
swept  off  with  herself.  You'd  better  give  it  back 
to  her:  I  know  she  forgot  to  take  it,  and  then 
wouldn't  come  back  for  it  when  she  remembered 
what  she  had  done." 

"I'll  manage  it,"  I  said.  And  as  I  handled 
it  I  remembered  how  I  had  seen  her  at  the  Opera 
House  looking  at  the  "Marriage  of  Figaro." 
She  was  alone,  wrapped  up  in  herself,  unconscious 
of  all  others,  like  a  girl  in  the  arms  of  the  man 
she  loves.  Coming  out  we  almost  touched  shoul- 
ders; I  had  almost  smiled  upon  her,  almost  spoken 
when  I  caught  a  view  of  her  full  face :  she  had  not 
yet  awakened!  I  made  my  way  to  my  cold  and 
shabby  lodgings.  I  had  seen  my  eagle  with  her 
eyes  dimmed,  with  her  wings  broken,  tamed — a 
thing  it  was  not  given  to  any  living  man  to  do — 
no,  nor  to  the  might  of  England! 


THE  AHERNS 


THE  AHERNS 

I 

BECAUSE  I  knew  no  house  in  that  country  (we 
had  not  then  opened  it  up ;  now  we  have  no  less 
than  three  strong  companies  of  Volunteers  there 
— fine  fellows),  I  took  my  chance  in  the  little 
hotel.  It  was  the  usual  kind  of  hotel  one  finds 
in  a  place  that  has  neither  charm  nor  business  of 
its  own — just  a  public-house,  with  a  few  stuffy 
little  bedrooms.  For  whole  months  at  a  time  it 
would  doubtless  forget  that  it  was  a  hotel  at  all. 
Then  some  old-time  angler  would  alight  on  it, 
or  a  commercial  traveller,  thinking  he  had  discov- 
ered a  virgin  land  and  would  work  it,  or  some 
sort  of  official  from  Dublin;  for  some  weeks  after 
the  passage  of  one  of  these  it  would  still  wear 
somehow  the  flaunt  of  a  hotel,  but  mostly  it  was 
just  a  public-house  by  the  side  of  a  road  in  a  graz- 
ing district,  somnolent  in  the  summer  and  almost 
forgotten  in  the  winter — shuttered  the  whole  day 
long,  its  door  closed  out. 

Except  for  a  middle-aged  man  named  Harley 
* — an  angler,  with  a  pursed-out,  gloomy,  silent 
mouth,  I  had  the  house  to  myself.  I  was  in  bed 
before  he  had  come  down  from  the  lake  in  the 

105 


IC>6      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

hills:  I  hoped  to  be  far  on  my  road  before  he 
would  rise  in  the  morning,  and  I  therefore  saw 
no  use  in  deepening  our  half-hour's  acquaintance- 
ship. I  remember  I  did  hear  him  come  in,  I  did 
hear  the  corks  popping  in  the  silent  night.  But 
I  had  fallen  again  to  sleep  when,  all  confused  for 
a  moment,  I  heard  the  sudden  rush  of  a  motor. 
Its  speed  was  so  great  that  I  felt  sure  of  its  pas- 
sing when,  without  a  voice  in  the  night,  I  heard 
it  swerve  towards  the  house  and  stop  up,  its 
stifled  energy  setting  my  room  quivering.  Then 
there  were  voices  enough,  quick,  low,  hard,  cer- 
tain of  themselves.  I  heard  the  rattle  of  guns, 
footsteps  noisily  making  up  the  stairs,  and  the 
publican's  voice  wailing  out,  "It's  not  fair  of  ye, 
gentlemen,  it's  not  fair  at  all."  I  was  had!  I 
felt  a  sort  of  disgust,  of  sickness;  the  swiftness 
of  the  capture,  the  ease  of  it,  staggered  me.  I 
had  not  even  left  my  bed;  I  had  not  even  thought 
of  flight. 

They  were  tapping,  peremptorily,  at  poor  Har- 
ley's  door.  They  were  turning  the  handle,  walk- 
ing in  to  him — bayonets  and  all!  They  were 
now  at  my  door.  It  was  flung  in,  a  flash  of  light 
sweeping  walls  and  ceiling. 

In  my  sleep,  my  left  elbow  raised  itself  to  keep 
out  the  dazzle  of  their  lanterns,  and  I  grumbled 
thickly.  Voices  were  whispering.  I  knew  the 


TH  E    AH  ERNS  107 

landlord  pushed  them  aside.  "Gentlemen,  gen- 
tlemen, can't  ye  see  he's  not  the  man  ye're  after." 

I  growled  again,  puffing  out  my  lips.  "You 
mustn't  speak,"  I  heard.  It  was  the  District  In- 
spector's voice,  I  could  tell  that. 

"  'Twas  four  to  one,  damn  and  blast  your 
soul,"  I  rapped  out,  up  in  their  very  faces. 

"Can't  ye  see?  'Tis  a  farmer's  son  he  is,  was 
at  the  Junction — where  else?  and  lost  his  money." 

They  shook  me. 

"Your  name,  what's  your  name?" 

"It  has  nothing  to  do  with  it — you'll  hand  over 
the  money  or  .  .  ."  and  without  putting  a  tooth 
in  them  I  flung  a  handful  of  terrible  words  up  in 
their  very  mouths. 

"By  damn,"  said  the  landlord,  "  'tis  how  he 
won;  'twas  whiskey  he  was  drinking,  too,  all  1 
had."  He  chuckled.  I  felt  him  by  me. 

"Waking  or  sleeping,  'twould  be  all  the  same; 
'tis  little  ye'd  get  from  him — wake  up,  sonny," 
he  urged.  But  he  gave  my  arm  a  sharp  little 
nip  the  moment  he  said  it.  I  was  too  drunk  to 
wake,  my  head  went  from  side  to  side  on  the  pil- 
low, like  a  child's  head  of  a  hot  summer's  night. 
They  were  whispering.  "Wake  up,  sonny,"  he 
said  again.  I  could  hear  Harley's  voice  timidly 
calling  him.  "I'm  coming,  I'm  coming,  sir." 
He  nipped  my  arm  again. 


Io8      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

I  felt  him  going.  What  would  happen  next? 
"I  don't  believe  'tis  him,"  I  heard.  I  raised  at 
once  a  long  rigmarole;  there  was  neither  sense 
nor  meaning  in  it,  but  I  kept  it  up ;  and  I  would 
repeat  the  one  sentence  six  times  running  without 
the  slightest  pause  at  the  endings.  And  while  I 
was  in  it — that  outburst  of  speech — I  felt  the 
room  grow  calm  and  cool  and  silent  around  me. 
They  had  stolen  away. 

After  all,  it  was  not  I  that  they  were  seeking. 
It  was  Killeenan;  they  had  tracked  him  right 
from  Dublin  to  this  countryside  and  then  lost 
him,  from  their  very  hands,  as  it  were.  But 
there  was  a  voice  among  those  whisperers  around 
my  bed,  and  I  had  had  dealings  with  that  voice 
already;  I  had  heard  it  giving  evidence  against 
me  at  a  courtmartial  in  Cork;  it  had  got  me  con- 
demned to  three  years'  imprisonment — not  one 
month  of  which  I  had  served.  Sergeant  Naylor 
would,  I  think,  be  quite  content  with  me  as  a 
capture  that  rich  night  in  autumn:  I  should  any- 
how, be  far  better  than  no  one. 


II 

A  curious  thing  happened  when  they  were  gone. 
1  was  sitting  up  in  the  bed,  listening  to  their  car 
getting  off  into  the  hills  like  a  swift  wind,  when 


THEAHERNS  109 

the  landlord  slipped  into  my  room,  softly  turning 
the  lock  on  the  door  behind  him.  As  quietly 
again,  he  lit  the  candle,  drew  the  one  chair  to 
my  bed  and  sat  on  it,  looking  at  me  with  a 
strange  smile.  In  this  deliberation  I  could 
see  he  was  trying  to  hide  his  high-strung  nerv- 
ousness. 

"Do  you  know  me?"  I  asked  him. 

"No,"  he  said;  "but  I  knew  what  you  were  the 
moment  you  came  in  the  door." 

I  was  surprised;  he  had  not  by  the  slightest 
look  or  word  let  me  understand  that  he  knew  my 
business. 

"How  did  you  know  what  I  was?" 

He  smiled  again,  lifted  himself,  and  gave  his 
head  the  slightest  little  toss.  I  knew  it  at  once; 
but  must  own  that  I  had  never  observed  it  till 
then.  Our  lads  use  it  at  the  courtsmartial  when, 
asked  if  they  have  anything  to  say,  they  reply,  as 
in  a  formula,  "I  want  to  say  that  I  haven't  a  dog's 
respect  for  this  court  or  its  findings."  I  had 
never  observed  it  till  then,  as  I  say,  and  I  was 
quite  unaware  that  it  could  be  observed  in  me  in 
my  ordinary  moments — observed,  moreover,  by 
a  country  publican !  He  was  smiling  with  a 
certain  shyness  in  his  eyes.  I  held  my  hand  out 
to  him. 

"I'm  thankful  to  you,"  I  said. 

"Didn't  we  do  it  well,  better  than  if  we  were 


110      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

after  planning   it   out  beforehand?"     His   look 
was  all  eagerness. 

"Far  better,"  was  all  I  could  say. 

"I  don't  know  how  I  did  it.  I  was  never  any 
use  at  deceiving  people,  let  alone  the  likes  of  them; 
something  kept  me  up.  .  .  ."  His  voice 
suddenly  weakened,  his  fingers  went  trailing 
weakly  across  his  forehead.  I  saw  sweat  stand- 
ing on  it.  He  was  turning  white.  I  leaped 
from  the  bed. 

"Hold  up!     'Tis  nothing,  'tis  nothing." 

He  hadn't  a  word  in  him.  I  thought  there 
might  be  some  whiskey  in  Harley's  room.  I 
made  for  it,  candle  in  hand.  He  had  just  got  in- 
to bed  for  the  second  time.  I  laid  my  hand  on  a 
little  flask.  "The  old  man  is  not  well;  he's  after 
fainting.  They  frightened  him." 

To  give  him  his  due  he  wanted  to  come  with 
me ;  but  I  would  not  allow  him. 

"I'm  getting  old,  I  suppose,"  said  the  publican, 
when  the  weakness  had  passed.  "A  man  should 
be  able  to  stand  more  than  that — these  times,"  he 
added,  with  that  quaint  shy  smile  of  his. 

I  put  my  landlord  to  bed — (there  was  no  one 
else  in  the  house  but  the  three  of  us) — and  I  left 
him  very  proud  and  happy  at  having  saved  me 
from  my  enemies. 

'Twould  be  frightful  if  they  nabbed  you  under 
my  roof,"  he  said. 


TH  E    AH  ERNS  III 


III 

I  am  sure  I  would  have  slept  all  right  if  it  were 
not  for  this  second  disturbance.  I  remained 
sitting  up  in  my  bed,  smoking  cigarette  after  cig- 
arette; and  it  came  to  me,  I  do  not  know  how, 
that  Sergeant  Naylor  would  recollect  having  seen 
my  face  before,  might  even  recollect  when  and 
where ;  and  in  two  minutes  I  was  dressing  myself 
with  quick  fingers. 

I  slipped  silently  down  the  stairs,  and  I  re- 
member noticing  the  stuffy  smell  in  the  shop, 
and  wondering  how  it  could  be  as  stuffy  as  that 
in  such  an  open,  windy  country.  I  slipped  the 
bolts — there  were  four  of  them — turned  the  key 
in  the  lock,  and  very  quietly  rolled  my  bicycle 
from  the  door  in  the  stillness  of  the  misty  dawn. 
I  crept  softly  forward.  Down  came  the  gable 
window. 

"Young  man,  I  say,  young  man,  where  are  you 
going?" 

"Sh! — sh!"  I  breathed  at  him,  "  'tis  better  for 
me  to  go.  They'll  come  back."  I  watched  his 
white  hair  sticking  out  in  tufts  around  his  head. 
There  was  an  innocence  in  his  look  that  made  me 
think  of  a  woman's  face.  The  world  and  its  hard 
wisdom,  for  some  reason,  had  passed  him  by. 


112      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

"But  you'll  have  something  before  you'll 
start?" 

"No,  no;  'tis  better  not.  I  know  where  to  go. 
I'll  have  a  good  breakfast,  I'll  warrant  you." 

"You  will,  you  will."  These  were  not  the 
words  he  would  say,  I  felt. 

"You'll  be  welcome  here  any  time,  night  or 
day.  Ye're  suffering  ye'r  own  share,  running  like 
the  poor  hare  and  the  dogs  upon  ye,"  he  imme- 
diately added. 

The  chilly  dawn  was  around  me  and  its  great 
stillness. 

"There  are  others  suffering  more — the  men  in 
English  prisons,"  I  answered;  and,  having  said  it, 
I  was  just  mounting  when  two  lines  of  Sean 
Clarach's  came  into  my  mind,  and  I  flung  up  my 
head  and  chanted  them  to  the  white  old  head  in 
the  window: — 

"Is  iomdha  mac  dilis  dibeartha  uaim, 
Is  a  Chriost,  nach  truagh  me  'na  n-easbaidhe." — 

"The  same  old  story?"  I  said,  with  a  sudden 
bitterness,  still  speaking  in  Irish. 

"I  don't  understand  ye,"  he  said,  in  a  sort  of 
wail,  "but  it's  great  to  hear  ye  speaking  that 
language;  it  reminds  me  of  them  that's  gone — 
great  men!  great  men!" 

I  waved  a  hand,  and  left  him  there,  staring 
after  me  in  the  silent  morning. 


TH  E    AHERNS  113 


IV 

About  ten  miles  off  was  a  country  I  knew  when 
a  boy,  I  had  often  spent  vacations  in  it.  As  I 
rode  and  rode,  Sean  Clarach's  earnest  words 
gradually  went  from  my  mind,  and  the  beautiful 
autumn  morning  began  to  wrap  me  about  with 
quiet  pleasure.  And  I  began  to  think  of  the 
farmer's  son  I  had  known  in  the  old  days  in  this 
place  towards  which  I  was  making:  we  had  fished 
its  streams  together  for  long  days,  and  ridden  the 
one  horse  to  the  little  town  on  messages.  And 
the  thought  of  him,  so  gentle  he  always  was,  fitted 
into  my  mood,  and  still  further  quieted  it,  en- 
riched it,  too — those  old  days  had  been  so  sweet 
and  homely,  and  the  later  days  so  full  of  anxiety 
and  rush  and  uncertainty.  I  swept  round  a 
corner  which  was  shadowy  with  trees,  and  then 
dismounted;  nothing  else  could  I  have  done;  there 
on  the  hillside  before  me  was  my  friend's  house 
— Gregory  Ahern's  house. 

I  told  myself  he  must  now  be  a  man,  but  I 
could  picture  him  only  as  a  boy.  These  were  our 
fields.  I  looked  all  over  them,  one  after  another. 
As  with  -all  Ireland  the  place  had  improved  very 
much — sheds  had  been  added,  barns  had  begun 
to  cluster  about  the  house,  and  a  screen  of  larch 
had  been  planted  against  the  north-east.  It  was 


114      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

so  prosperous-looking  that  I  had  some  slight  fear 
that  it  might  have  passed  into  other  hands.  At 
last,  I  wheeled  my  bicycle  up  the  bohereen  and 
through  the  farmyard.  The  house  door  was 
open.  An  old  man  greeted  me:  an  oblique 
rectangle  of  sharp  sunlight  fell  on  the  floor, 
reaching  to  his  feet. 

"  'Tis,"  he  said;  "you're  at  the  right  house." 

"And  you,"  I  said,  "are  Humphrey  Ahern." 

"The  same,"  he  said,  cautiously. 

"You  don't  know  me?" 

He  raised  his  eyes  and  kept  them  fixed  on  me. 

"Pardon  me,"  he  said,  with  an  easy  courtesy 
that  brought  vividly  back  to  me  the  boy  Gregory 
I  had  known  in  the  old  days;  there  was  something 
in  him  that,  even  then,  I  used  to  wonder  at,  not 
able  to  name  it. 

"Pardon  me,"  he  blinked  at  me,  "the  rheu- 
matism has  me  destroyed.  I  can't  rise,  and  I 
cannot  see  with  the  sun."  He  made  an  effort  to 
rise. 

"It's  fifteen  years  since  I  was  last  in  this  place," 
I  said,  coming  close  to  him,  "your  son,  Gregory, 
would  know  me." 

"If  he  knew  you  then,  he  won't  deny  you  now." 
I  thought  there  was  a  touch  of  meaning  in  his 
words:  had  I  been  tossing  my  head  in  the  air,  I 
wondered  ? 

"Gregory,  and  all  of  them,  are  in  the  sheds 


TH  E    AH  ERNS 


with  the  cows;  they'll  be  here  in  a  moment;  rest 
yourself." 


The  womenfolk  came  in  first.  They  had  no 
difficulty  in  recalling  me:  they  asked  after  my 
people.  Then  Gregory  came — my  old  friend — 
only  now  six  feet  in  height,  big  of  bone,  keen-eyed, 
a  little  jerky  in  movement.  His  voice  was  indis- 
tinct, his  whole  bearing  had  that  excessive  gentle- 
ness that  is  so  common  in  Munster.  His  diffi- 
dence almost  prevented  speech.  After  some 
time : — 

"I  read  your  book,"  he  said.  "I  have  it  in- 
side," he  nodded  towards  the  little  parlour. 

I  was  surprised.  My  little  book  of  poems  had 
not,  I  had  very  good  reason  to  know,  voyaged 
far  beyond  my  friends  in  Dublin. 

"And  you  were  in  the  Rising,  and  in  Frongoch; 
I  was  going  to  write  to  you.  ...  I  didn't.  .  .  ." 

He  glanced  shyly  at  me:  his  eyes  fell.  I  had 
reddened  a  little.  The  fact  is  I  had  never 
thought  of  him  for  yeftrs  and  years !  His  people 
were  staring  at  me.  They  evidently  had  as  yet 
never  met  anyone  who  had  gone  through  that 
terrible  week  in  Dublin  or  slept  in  prisons.  And 
he,  surely,  had  kept  all  this  to  himself.  He  had 
enshrined  me !  I  could  see  it ;  and  I  stumbled  in 


Il6      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

my  speech,  as  a  consequence,  fearing  that  the 
least  hint  of  the  Dublin  literary  man  or  the  hero 
of  many  prisons  would  break  from  me.  I  tried 
to  keep  my  head  steady,  as  one  does  for  a 
photographer.  His  people  had  become  more 
than  polite :  the  old  man  was  examining  me  with 
steady  eyes  and  pursed  lips,  thinking  his  thoughts. 

At  our  meal  of  home-made  cake,  eggs  and  tea, 
with  great  shyness  Gregory  said:  "I  read  an 
article  you  wrote  in  'The  Rebel' ;  it  was  called 
'When  the  gods  arrive,  the  half-gods  go' — I 

thought  it  good — perhaps  I  have  no  right " 

I  checked  him.  Other  articles,  too,  wayside  things, 
he  recalled;  he  had  treasured  them  for  my 
sake.  I  feared  he  would  quote  them,  repeat  them ! 

"You  should  have  written  to  me,"  I  said. 

"Gregory  isn't  the  boy  to  do  a  thing  like  that," 
his  aunt  broke  in,  smiling  with  quiet  eyes.  He 
gave  a  little  shrug,  and  stood  upright,  staring 
through  the  open  door. 

I  couldn't  place  him,  my  mind  couldn't  cover 
his  with  any  confidence;  I  had  met  that  typte  of 
Munsterman  before,  had  discovered  unexpected 
depths  in  them — a  grit  that  is  not  blatant.  It 
has  often  failed  us  of  the  Volunteers  to  make 
drill  sergeants  out  of  them;  but  they  may  keep 
a  whole  countryside  up  to  the  mark.  They  go  to 
America,  to  England,  to  Glasgow  and  keep 
labour  politics  red  hot!  I  tremble  before  them. 


TH  E    AHERNS  llj 

And  Gregory  was,  I  could  see,  even  among  the 
type  quite  exceptional:  his  own  people  had  even 
noticed  it.  I  was  not  at  ease,  the  more  so  on 
account  of  that  head-toss  the  publican  had  dis- 
covered in  me.  I  knew  I  had  lately  developed, 
in  my  flying  from  place  to  place,  from  company 
to  company,  something  of  the  soldier  of  fortune 
— indeed  we,  all  of  us,  put  on  the  soldier  of 
fortune  a  little  too  often,  sometimes  as  a  mask, 
sometimes  for  the  sport  of  the  thing.  I  would 
redden  with  shame  if  now  the  least  hint  of  that 
hail-fellow-well-met  boisterousness  came  to  the 
top.  Gregory's  type  shrink  before  such  loudness, 
abashed,  and  yet  deeply  scornful.  And  perhaps 
it  was  to  avoid  any  such  display  that  I  began  to 
speak  of  my  escape  from  the  District  Inspector — 
an  incident  where  my  part  was  not  heroic.  I 
stopped  suddenly — they  were  examining  me  with 
such  earnest  eyes.  "Oh,  but  there  was  no  danger, 
no  danger  at  all.  They  wouldn't  have  shot  me ! 
At  the  worst  it  might  have  meant  three 
years.  .  .  ." 

"But  if  you  resisted?" 

"But  I  wouldn't " 

"  'Tis  the  publican  we're  thinking  of,"  said 
Gregory's  father. 

"How?"  I  said. 

"He  didn't  betray  you?" 

I  was  glad  to  speak  of  the  publican's  part,  of 


IlS      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

how  he  had  helped  me,  as  with  the  surety  of  in- 
stinct. I  told  of  my  leaving  him,  of  my  thank- 
fulness. They  lifted  up,  looking  at  one  another. 

"He's  an  uncle  of  Gregory's,"  the  old  man 
shook  his  head  at  his  son. 

"Your  brother?"  I  said. 

"The  same,"  he  replied  quietly. 

'Tis  in  the  blood,"  I  whispered,  under  my 
breath. 

The  next  moment  I  was  sorry  I  had  told  them 
all  this.  I  was  now  not  only  a  man  on  his 
keeping,  but  one  almost  within  the  clutches  of  his 
pursuers.  Already  I  could  see  them  glancing 
through  the  windows:  a  labouring  boy,  who  had 
been  listening,  rose  up  and  casually  strolled 
through  the  door  to  the  gate  of  the  farmyard, 
stood  there  a  moment  looking  east,  looking  west, 
as  if  sniffing  the  air.  Coming  back  he  threw 
himself  along  the  settle.  "He's  another  Ahern," 
I  said  to  myself. 

Gregory  himself  had  fallen  into  an  unbroken 
silence.  Once  or  twice  I  caught  him  glancing  at 
me,  and  I  would  question  myself  whether  I  had 
bragged  or  spoken  cheaply  or  tossed  my  head. 
How  much  easier  it  is  to  face  the  hot  little  eyes 
of  the  martinets  who  preside  at  the  courtsmartial 
than  it  is  to  meet  those  questioning  eyes  where 
admiration  wrestles  with  old  love! 


THE    AHERNS  119 


VI 

I  slept  with  Gregory  that  night.  Even  when 
we  were  alone,  I  sitting  on  his  bed,  he  smoking 
the  cigarette  I  had  given  him,  I  couldn't  win  him 
from  his  reserve.  I  got  in  first.  His  voice 
changing  a  little,  he  jerked  out:  "Are  you  sure 
there's  no  danger?  Couldn't  we  mount  guard? 
Jack  and  myself;  'twould  be  only  a  couple  of 
hours  each.  He'll  be  glad  to  do  so;  I  know 
him." 

I  laughed. 

"You  need  to  knock  about  a  bit." 

"Everyone  says  that,"  he  jerked  his  head,  half' 
piteously,  half-humorously. 

I  do  not  know  how  many  hours  I  had  slept 
when  I  awoke  quietly  from  a  pleasant  sleep.  As 
one  will  in  a  strange  room,  I  had  to  look  for  the 
window.  There,  with  a  start,  I  saw  Gregory 
with  his  head  thrust  out  into  the  air  I 

"Gregory!  For  the  love  of  heaven,  what  are 
you  doing  there?" 

"Nothing,  nothing,  I  couldn't  sleep.  I  fancied 
I  heard  people  prowling." 

"Have  sense,  boy,  have  sense!" 

"Everything  is  quiet,"  he  said  coming  from 
the  window. 


120      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

"I  declare,"  I  said,  "  'tis  I  will  have  to  mount 
guard  over  you." 

"I  really  thought  I  heard  something  .  .  .  only 
for  that " 

"If  you  rise  again  I'll  go  out  and  sleep  in  the 
shed — I'd  have  more  peace  and  quietness." 

"But  supposing  you  were  caught  here  in  our 
house." 

"Lord!  The  Aherns  would  never  recover 
from  the  shame  of  it !" 

He  laughed. 

"We're  not  used  to  it." 

"What?"  I  said. 

"Having  people  like  you  with  us — felons — 
rebels.  ...  I  suppose  I'd  make  a  bad  soldier?" 

A  bad  soldier !  He  was  like  a  young  colt  that 
would  tremble  and  dance  about  the  field — but 
once  in  the  race ! 

The  next  time  I  woke  'twas  with  the  sweat 
standing  on  my  brow.  I  was  being  hanged,  but 
for  all  that  they  could  not  stifle  my  voice. 
Hundreds  of  them  were  there  before  me,  their 
faces  white  and  distorted  with  passion — moving, 
drawing  close  to  me,  vanishing.  Everything 
was  in  movement;  and  it  was  my  voice  that  had 
caused  it.  I  was  making  a  speech  such  as  had 
never  been  made  before  on  the  scaffold — flinging 
out  taunts  to  them  that  made  them  squirm  and 
vanish  from  my  eyes !  And  all  the  time  I  was 


TH  E    AH  ERNS  121 

being  stifled.  .  .  .  When  I  awoke  Gregory's  long, 
and,  truth  to  tell,  strong  and  bony  arm  was 
fiercely  around  my  neck.  You  might  see  a 
wooden  horse  so  grasped  in  the  arm  of  a  sleeping 
child! 

Disengaging  his  arm,  though  I  did  so  with  all 
gentleness,  he  almost  awoke.  "What!  what!" 
he  murmured,  and  then  a  crowd  of  little  words 
ran  from  him.  But  he  was  fast  in  his  sleep.  I 
breathed  easily:  I  could  not  bear  that  he  should 
know  he  had  gripped  me  like  that.  I  do  not 
know  what  he  was  dreaming  of;  but  I  am  sure  of 
one  thing,  however;  whatever  it  was  it  was  not  he 
who  was  playing  the  leading  part  in  it,  making 
fine  speeches,  casting  heroic  scorn  on  his  country's 
enemies. 

Time  has  passed.  Yes,  he  keeps  that  whole 
countryside  firm.  He  has  it  in  his  grip.  He  will 
be  dragged  from  his  house  some  night  and  shot. 
Or  he  may,  in  the  end,  die  in  prison  of  a  hunger 
strike.  He  will  not  fail,  nor  look  a  fool — the 
big  things  being  come. 


COLONEL  MAC  GILLICUDDY 
GOES  HOME 


COLONEL  MAC  GILLICUDDY 
GOES  HOME 

I 

COLONEL  MAC  GILLICUDDY  having  been  now 
laid  to  rest  with  his  Gaelic  ancestors  in  Muckross 
Abbey,  my  life,  I  trust,  will  soon  again  begin  to 
flow  into  its  old  channels. 

The  memory  of  the  Colonel  was  becoming, 
perhaps,  the  faintest  of  all  my  memories — I  had 
not  seen  him  for  years  and  years — when  I  chanced 
on  this  casual  little  paragraph  in  my  morning 
paper : — 

"The  lecture  that  Colonel  Mac  Gillicuddy  was  to 
give  in  Wexford  Town  Hall  on  'Cromwell  in  Wex- 
ford'  has  been  prohibited  by  the  authorities." 

Then  the  Colonel  is  home  from  India,  I 
thought.  He  had  been  wounded  at  the  battle  of 
the  Somme,  and  these  wounds,  I  knew,  had  un- 
fitted him  for  further. active  service;  I  also  knew 
that  he  had  since  then  been  put  in  charge  of  some 
commissariat  department  in  India,  and  that  he 
had  had  to  make  frequent  journeys  into  the  very 
heart  of  that  vast  land,  as  well  as  into 

125 


126      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

Mesopotamia;  but  beyond  this  I  knew  nothing. 

Anyway,  he  was  now  in  Ireland  and  anxious  to 
lecture  in  town  halls — what  had  happened  to 
him?  To  lecture,  moreover,  on  "Cromwell  in 
Wexford,"  and  in  Wexford  itself — whatever  had 
happened  to  him? 

Other  colonels,  it  is  true,  had  endeavoured  to 
influence  opinion  in  Ireland  by  lecturing  on  Irish 
themes:  I  myself  had  heard  a  colonel  lecture  on 
"The  Wild  Geese"  in  quite  a  sympathetic  way, 
and  not  without  some  show  of  learning;  but  then 
this  was  before  the  Rising  'in  Dublin  at  Easter, 
1916,  and  the  colonel  who  had  done  so  was  by 
nature  a  flashy  sort  of  person.  Colonel  Mac 
Gillicuddy  was  different:  a  silent,  brooding  sort 
of  man,  somewhat  of  a  student,  he  would  not  be 
twenty-four  hours  in  Ireland,  his  native  land, 
without  perceiving  that  all  such  methods  of  in- 
fluencing Irishmen  had  become  useless,  the  temper 
of  the  people  having  changed  so  much. 

I  found  a  faint  smile  beginning  to  play  about 
my  lips.  I  thought  of  Mac  Gillicuddy  himself — 
a  quiet,  brooding  man  with  pursed  lips  and  a  top- 
heavy  brow — why,  his  very  appearance  on  the 
platform  would  kill  the  life  of  any  lecture  hall  in 
the  world,  though  it  were  lit  with  a  hundred  arc- 
lamps  and  festooned  with  red  and  white  flowers. 
And  then  his  theme,  "Cromwell  in  Wexford!" 
What  other  picture  could  that  bring  before  the 


COLONEL    MAC    GILLICUDDY    127 

mind  than  the  slaughter  in  cold  blood  by  the 
Cromwellian  soldiery  of  the  300  noble  women  of 
the  town  as  they  gathered  for  sanctuary  about  the 
stone  cross  in  the  market  place — surely  an  ex- 
traordinary story  on  the  lips  of  a  British  officer! 
Then  the  place  he  had  chosen — Wexford  itself! 
And  then  the  time — November,  1919,  when  the 
nerves  of  all  Ireland  were  strained  almost  to  the 
breaking  point !  Even  as  this  thought  flashed  on 
my  mind,  I  looked  through  the  paper,  and  there, 
spread  all  over  it,  were  stories  of  arrests,  of  mid- 
night raids  for  arms,  of  prisoners  hunger- 
striking  in  prison,  of  shootings,  of  jailings,  of 
further  proclamations  of  martial  law.  And  I 
had  only  to  look  through  the  window  to  see 
soldiers  marching  by,  armed  to  the  teeth.  Of 
the  Colonel's  desire  to  lecture  on  "Cromwell  in 
Wexford"  at  such  a  time,  in  such  a  place,  I  could 
make  nothing,  except  that  something  had 
happened  to  him. 


II 

I  saw  no  other  mention  of  that  lecture  in  the 
papers;  a  fortnight  afterwards,  however,  I 
received  a  short  note  from  him,  a  fact  surprising 
enough  in  itself,  for  during  his  two  years  of  ser- 
vice in  France  and  since  in  India — eventful  years 


128      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

— he  had  not  written  me  even  one  letter.  His 
note  made  no  apology  for  all  this,  neither  did  he 
make  any  inquiry  of  how  these  years  had  passed 
for  me;  he  simply  mentioned,  casually  it  seemed, 
that  he  intended  staying  three  weeks  longer  in 
Drogheda,  studying  on  the  spot  the  details  of 
Cromwell's  massacre  in  that  town!  How  long  he 
had  been  there  already,  why  he  had  chosen  to 
delve  into  these  terrible  things,  and  why  he  should 
trouble  me  with  them — all  this  had  not  crossed 
his  mind,  it  seemed.  His  postscript  was  queerer 
still :  "Have  you  seen  Tate's  book  on  'Kitchener 
in  Africa'?" 

That  I  noted.  I  had  not  heard  of  such  a  book, 
but  since  Mac  himself  had  served  under  Kitch- 
ener in  his  African  wars,  it  was  likely  to  be 
authoritative  or  he  wouldn't  have  referred  me  to 
it.  "Tate's  'Kitchener  in  Africa,'  "  I  wrote  in 
my  notebook;  and  even  as  I  did  so  a  sudden 
thought  jerked,  jerked  the  pen  from  the  paper: 
why,  Mac  himself  must  have  witnessed  some  terri- 
ble slayings  in  his  time,  perhaps  even  taken  a 
hand  in  them! 

I  stood  up  straight.  I  no  longer  smiled:  his 
deadly  earnest  face,  which  now  was  all  my  vision, 
forbade  it.  I  had  to  put  away  my  work  and  go 
out  into  the  streets.  With  a  nervous,  unrestful 
stride,  that  I  found  impossible  to  control,  I  went 
from  hilltop  to  hilltop,  without  purpose.  Fagged, 


COLONEL    MAC    GILLICUDDY    129 

yet  quieted  somewhat  in  spirit,  I  reached  my 
lodging  again  about  eight  o'clock  at  night.  A 
postcard  stood  against  the  foot  of  my  lamp.  I 
saw  that  it  was  Mac's  writing.  I  turned  the  other 
side  and  read  these  words,  "Syed  Ameer  Khal- 
doun's  book  on  India  also." 

India !  I  could  hardly  touch  the  food  they  put 
on  the  table  before  me.  And  yet  there  was  noth- 
ing like  a  definite  thought  in  my  mind — nothing, 
only  the  sense  of  a  far-off  background  that  I  was 
afraid  to  examine,  a  background  of  outrage  and 
blood  and  horizon-flames  tonguing  the  distant 
skies;  and  against  this  background  I  would  see, 
all  the  time,  Mac  Gillicuddy's  brooding  face,  his 
top-heavy  brow,  his  pursed  lips,  his  gloomy  eyes  1 


III 


I  had  just  settled  down  of  an  evening  three 
weeks  later  on  to  resume  the  reading  of  Tate's  ill- 
advised  book  on  Kitchener  in  the  Soudan  when  the 
Colonel  was  announced.  I  couldn't  take  my  eyes 
from  his  face.  He  had  changed,  he  had  aged, 
withered,  but  these  changes  I  might  have  looked 
for:  he  was  verging  on  the  middle  age,  and  his 
life  had  been  a  hard  one.  It  was  not  these 
changes  in  him  that  held  me  in  wonder:  it  was  a 
certain  expression  that  would  come  across  his  face, 


130      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

chilling  the  air;  and  I  could  feel  that  he  had  some- 
how come  on  new  standards  and  that  he  was  now 
judging  the  world  by  them :  at  such  times  I  would 
halt  midway  in  a  sentence,  hoping  he  would  not 
guess  the  conclusion  I  had  intended !  And  often, 
until  his  whole  face  looked  distorted,  his  right 
eyebrow  would  climb  up  his  forehead,  slowly, 
slowly;  and  the  eye  itself,  so  exposed,  would  then 
glare  mercilessly  into  one's  very  brain!  His 
very  appearance  disturbed  me  deeply.  He  did  not 
speak  of  India  or  Egypt;  his  mind  was  too  full, 
at  the  moment,  of  Drogheda  and  Wexford. 
Every  detail  of  Cromwell's  (or  as  he  had  taken  to 
pronouncing  the  name,  Crom'ell's)  massacres  in 
these  places  he  had  amassed,  sifted,  examined  and 
arranged;  and  I  could  see  that  by  dint  of  brood- 
ing on  them,  the  terrible  scenes,  the  locale  of 
which  he  had  been  so  familiarising  himself  with, 
had  become  alive  for  him,  were  burning  as  fiercely 
before  his  inner  eye  as  if,  like  a  poet,  he  had 
created  them  out  of  some  central  theme  of  human 
vileness.  Noting  how  he  would  linger,  involun- 
tarily I  was  sure,  on  certain  incidents — the  kill- 
ing of  infants  in  the  crypts  of  St.  Peter's  Church 
in  Drogheda,  or  the  dragging  with  ropes  of  an  old 
priest  over  the  cobble  stones — noting  his  rigid 
air  of  concentration  at  these  moments,  I  could 
feel  that  the  energy  of  his  mind  was  exactly  that 


COLONEL    MAC    GILLICUDDY    131 

of  a  poet's  in  the  throes  of  creation:  he  was,  I 
was  certain,  in  the  midst  of  passionate  confusion, 
blood  was  flowing  beneath  his  eyes,  steaming,  and 
the  odour  of  it  was  in  his  nostrils. 

I  was  really  glad  when,  at  two  in  the  morning, 
he  rose  to  go.  I  felt  I  should  accompany  him, 
for  his  ardour  of  mind  was  such  that  he  might 
easily  go  astray  or  walk  into  the  river,  yet  this 
I  could  not  bring  myself  to  do :  he  had  exhausted 
my  powers.  When  I  shut  the  door  on  him  I 
spread  myself,  dressed  as  I  was,  on  my  bed,  forc- 
ing myself  to  think  on  anything,  on  everything, 
except  on  those  wild  scenes  he  had  been  speaking 
of  like  a  living  witness.  ...  I  kept  my  eyes  in 
the  clutch  of  my  left  hand.  .  .  .  After  a  long 
spell  of  this  artificially-nurtured  coma,  as  it  were, 
I  sprang  up  suddenly,  caught  up  Tate's  book  on 
Kitchener  and  hurled  it  into  the  fire,  for  an  in- 
sidious, morbid  craving  to  dip  again  into  his  hor- 
rors had  begun  to  form  itself  in  my  quietening 
spirit. 


IV 

The  next  morning  he  called  to  tell  me  that  he 
was  starting  at  once  for  Kerry.  Cromwell,  I 
gladly  recollected  had  never  visited  Kerry,  and  I 


132      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

remember  I  said,  "  'Tis  the  very  place  for  you 
— a  charming  land,  wild,  romantic,  yet  gentle, 
somehow,  with  mild  winds  from  the  sea.  Be- 
sides, it  is  the  home  of  the  Mac  Gillicuddys." 

"Yes;  I  have  been  told  they  were  a  branch  of 
the  O'Sullivans." 

"That  is  so." 

I  was  glad  to  find  him  in  so  contained  a  mood. 
I  expected  he  would  satisfy  himself  with  south 
Kerry,  with  Kenmare,  or  Waterville,  or  Killarney 
itself,  with  its  magnificent  Macgillicuddy  Reeks, 
the  mountain  land  of  his  ancestors;  but  a  few 
days  later  I  had  a  few  lines  from  him  from  Bally- 
ferriter,  which  is  in  the  north.  Ballyferriter,  he 
informed  me,  means  the  Town  of  the  Ferriters, 
an  old  Norman  family;  and  then  he  added:  "In 
Killarney  I  visited  Cnoc-na-gCaorach  (the  Hill 
of  the  Sheep)  where  Pierce  Ferriter,  the  warrior 
poet,  the  prince  who  was  head  of  the  clan,  was 
hanged,  a  priest  on  one  side,  a  bishop  on  the  other, 
in  the  time  of  Cromwell."  I  could  not  help  mut- 
tering, "Still  harping  on  his  Cromwell";  but  I 
read  on:  "From  my  bedroom  window  here  I  can 
see  the  whole  of  Smerwick  Harbour;  as  I  write 
the  moon  is  shining  on  Dunanore." 

Smerwick!  Dunanore! — And  not  another 
word,  only  the  two  names — two  names  that  I 
had  almost  forgotten.  It  was  not  for  nothing 


COLONEL    MAC    GILLICUDDY     133 

he  had  gone  to  Ballyferriter !  I  could  picture 
his  gloomy  eyes  looking  out  on  the  still  waters  of 
that  haunted  bay.  I  should  have  gone  with  him. 
The  very  next  morning  I  had  a  letter  from  him 
which  was,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  incoherent.  It 
puzzled  me.  There  were  lines  in  it,  dashed  down 
I  could  see,  about  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  about 
Lord  Grey — terrible  judgments;  then  there  were 
homely  phrases:  "Among  the  Irish-speaking 
people  of  this  place  I  find  the  word  for  sixpence 
is  raol,  which  surely  is  the  Spanish  word  real." 
Then  following  right  on  that:  "I  hear  screams 
in  the  dead  night,"  and  then,  "Why  does  one 
become  sometimes  and  quite  suddenly  possessed 
of  a  wild  gaiety  in  such  spots?"  Every  sentence 
in  the  letter,  all  but  two,  was  quite  intelligible, 
but  as  a  whole  it  was  without  sequence:  it  was 
no  more  to  be  understood  than  the  broken  phrases 
a  soldier,  after  a  day  of  battle,  flings  from  him  in 
his  restless  sleep.  It  happened  that  I  had  just 
been  reading  Miigge's  Life  of  Nietzsche,  and  I 
recollected  how  he  tells  that  the  incoherency  of 
the  philosopher's  letters  was  the  first  hint  his 
friends  had  of  his  approaching  madness.  I 
grew  suddenly  afraid.  I  picked  up  a  time- 
table, and  in  less  than  an  hour  I  was  journeying 
towards  Dingle,  which  is  the  nearest  station  to 
Ballyferriter. 


134      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 


I  found  him  weakly  struggling  with  his  excite- 
ment. While  eating  the  plain  fare,  the  home- 
made bread,  that  had  been  put  before  me,  I 
noticed  that  his  face  was  becoming  more  and 
more  haggard:  the  invisible  fingers  of  a  fixed 
idea  were  dragging  at  his  cheeks.  He  could  not 
help  rising  from  the  table  to  survey  for  the 
twentieth  time  the  quiet  bay  outside,  and  he 
would  scan  its  distances  as  anxiously  as  if  he 
were  fearful  that  an  enemy  squadron  might  at  any 
moment  round  its  rocky  headlands.  He  was 
soon  hurrying  me  along  beside  its  gentle  waters. 
For  December  it  was  a  day  of  wondrous  mild- 
ness, and  never  were  any  waters  so  limpid  and 
beautiful  in  colour.  They  fell  on  the  golden 
sands  in  just  one  long  wave,  that  caught  the 
mellow  tints  of  the  sky  as  it  rose  and  broke  lazily 
in  foam.  To  our  right,  a  black  stump  of  a 
ruined  stronghold  stood  a  little  way  back  from 
the  waters.  The  Colonel  pointed  it  out  to  me, 
and  told  me  how  it  had  belonged  to  the  Fitz- 
geralds,  when  they  were  over-lords  of  all  this 
land,  and  how  one  of  them,  when  nearing  his  end, 
had  asked  to  be  raised  up  so  that  his  last  vision 
might  be  the  waters  of  his  beloved  bay.  The 


COLONEL    MAC    GILLICUDDY     135 

Colonel  spoke  in  a  wistful  tone,  and  I  began  to 
hope  that  this  quiet  country  of  St.  Brendan  and 
many  another  life-forsaking  hermit — so  far  from 
the  turmoil  of  the  world,  might  again  win  him  to 
peacefulness.  But  the  next  moment,  standing 
where  San  Josepho's  Spaniards,  three  hundred 
years  ago,  had  made  their  fight,  he  was,  with  an 
edge  on  his  voice,  pointing  out  to  me  the  traces  of 
the  fort  they  had  thrown  up,  and  was  showing  me 
where  Raleigh  butchered  the  whole  800  of  them 
to  death,  they  having  first  surrendered  to  him 
their  arms.  Feeling  that  edge  on  his  voice,  I  drew 
him  unsuspectingly  from  the  spot,  and  kept  him 
pacing  by  the  lisping  and  breaking  waters  almost 
till  midnight,  hoping  that  by  first  tiring  out  his 
body  the  great  peace  of  the  wide  moonlight  night 
might  the  more  surely  win  upon  his  spirit. 

I  had  just  got  into  bed  with  a  certain  flatter- 
ing thought  that  my  ruse  had  not  quite  failed, 
when  I  heard  him  tapping  hurriedly  at  my  door. 
Before  I  was  half  dressed  he  was  in  the  room. 

"Look!  Look!"  He  had  flung  up  my  win- 
dow, his  hand  was  stretched  into  the  night:  when 
I  drew  to  his  side  I  could  see  it  trembling.  Be- 
yond it,  was  all  the  sweep  of  the  bay,  dreamy- 
looking  in  the  moon,  and  quiet  slopes  of  shadow 
were  laid  upon  the  hills.  But,  of  course  my  eyes 
were  fixed  on  that  spit  of  land  where  Raleigh  had 


136      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

done  his  slaughtering,  for  towards  that  the  trem- 
bling moon-white  hand,  as  I  instinctively  knew, 
was  fiercely  stretched. 

"Ah,  my  God!  my  God!"  he  was  breathing, 
and  I  could  feel  his  limbs  trembling.  "Horrible ! 
horrible !  horrible  I" 

"What?  what?"  I  said. 

"The  cries,  the  cries,"  he  whispered.  I  could, 
by  the  sound  of  his  voice,  tell  that  there  was  no 
natural  moisture  left  in  his  mouth;  it  was  scarcely 
speech  that  came  from  him.  He  was  hanging  on 
to  me,  and  his  trembling  shook  me.  Could  it  be 
possible  that  he  was  beholding  in  vision  the  mur- 
dering of  800  defenceless  men?  saw  it  as  an 
artist  would — in  vivid  groupings  of  destroyer 
and  destroyed? 

I  peeped  at  him.  His  teeth  were  chattering, 
and  his  hands  clutched  my  shoulders  heavily,  as 
if  his  legs  were  giving  way;  he  was  shrinking 
back  from  what  he  was  glaring  at.  Yet  the  only 
sounds  to  be  heard  from  outside  were  some  sea- 
fowl  quarrelling  above  a  school  of  sprats  (as  I 
took  it)  in  the  mouth  of  the  bay — sharp  cries 
or  melancholy,  long-drawn  and  wailing.  Was 
it  these  cries  that  were  playing  havoc  with  him? 
I  felt  my  own  ears  greedily  gathering  them  in,  I 
felt  myself  yielding  to  them,  I  found  them  taking 
on  some  strange  hurry  and  wildness.  Bah!  I 
shook  myself.  But  he  was  trying  to  speak,  and  I 


COLONEL    MAC    GILLICUDDY    137 

thought  it  was  the  word  "Cries"  I  again  heard. 

"Rather  inadequate,"  I  flung  out  peevishly, 
thinking,  perhaps,  to  break  the  spell  that  was  on 
him;  the  cries  of  the  sea  birds  just  then  were  very 
far  away,  and  indeed,  not  unpleasant  in  the  still 
night.  How  could  anyone  mix  them  up  with  the 
wild  screaming  of  a  massacre?  But  I  had  tugged 
at  some  tightened  nerve  in  him.  He  leaped  from 
me,  back  into  the  room,  and  the  heaviness  of 
weakness  was  gone  from  him.  He  was  now  all 
nerve  and  sinew.  He  was  glaring  at  me : — 

"Inadequate !  inadequate !  That's  just  it." 
He  spoke  as  if  the  problem  of  his  life  had  been 
solved. 

"Inadequate!  Laughable!  Laughable,  when 
you  think  of  the  horror  of  it!  It  is  that  that 
makes  one  reckless  in  such  businesses.  Wild,  in- 
human (how  he  was  glaring  at  me!) — delighted 
to  give  the  edge  of  the  sword  on  a  grey  pate,  or 
a  soft  breast,  or  a  child! — 'I  will  make  them 
squeal,'  you  say,  you  can't  help  saying  it  when 
the  passion  of  slaughter  is  upon  you,  but  you  .  . . 
you  can't  make  them  squeal — loud  enough!  and 
then,  and  then  .  .  .  my  God !  my  God !  Shut  it ! 
shut  it!  The  curtains.  Those  also — Oh!  my 
God!  my  God!" 

He  had  flung  himself  on  the  bed,  burying  his 
face  in  the  pillow.  I  knew  he  felt  himself  swoon- 
ing off,  dizzy;  and  seeing  that  he  was  beyond 


138      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

making  any  effort  to  get  a  grip  of  himself,  I  said 
no  word  to  him,  only  gripped  his  limp  hand  firmly, 
firmly — there  is  no  other  medicine  for  such  a 
crisis — until,  little  by  little,  the  terror  p-assed 
from  him. 


I  was  careful  not  to  let  him  again  out  of  my 
sight.  As  the  death-still  night  went  on — oh, 
what  a  land  of  holy  silence  it  is! — he  won  back 
almost  to  his  own  self  and  tried  to  force  me  to 
my  bed,  protesting  that  it  was  not  kind  of  me  to 
treat  him  like  an  invalid.  I  shook  my  head,  and 
there  I  sat  until  the  inevitable  reaction  had  come 
upon  him,  and  he  was  sunken  into  an  unrestful 
sleep. 

The  night  was  chilly,  and  there  was  no  fire  in  the 
grate,  and,  not  caring  to  rouse  the  household, 
my  only  plan  was  to  slip  into  the  room  he  had 
left  and  rifle  it  of  the  blankets  and  wrap  myself 
in  them ;  which  done,  there  I  kept  vigil  over  him, 
like  a  shepherd  in  an  eastern  land.  Sometimes 
the  loud  scream  of  a  sea-bird  would  cut  through 
the  night,  and  I  would  glance  at  him  to  see  if  he 
stirred  to  it.  But,  no.  Then  the  silence  would 
deepen  and  my  thoughts  would  follow  the  strong- 
winged  bird  over  the  wide  waters.  I  began  to 


COLONEL    MAC    GILLICUDDY    139 

recollect  all  that  I  had  ever  learned  of  the  massa- 
cre Raleigh  had  made  in  this  lonely  land;  and  the 
slaughters  that  have  been  made  by  others  in  this 
country  before  and  since,  connecting  one  with  an- 
other; and  how  it  came  about  I  do  not  know,  but 
suddenly,  with  firm  assurance,  it  came  to  me  that 
Mac  Gillicuddy  was  picturing  all  those  terrible 
scenes  in  the  light  of  his  experiences  in  Africa  and 
India  and  Mesopotamia !  Certain  phrases  in  his 
letters,  certain  words  I  had  heard  him  use,  cer- 
tain inquiries  he  had  been  making  of  me,  began  to 
swarm  back  on  me,  one  summoning  another,  and 
at  last  I  almost  shouted  out:  I  have  it,  I  have 
it! — the  fixed  idea  that  is  harrying  him  into  mad- 
ness ! 

With  confidence  I  bent  my  eyes  on  the  bed.  He 
was  whining,  squealing  like  a  young  puppy  in  its 
first  illness;  but  I  didn't  mind:  I  could  cure  him! 
Now  he  was  still,  quite  still,  seeming  as  if  he 
were  listening  to  things  far  away — that  sense  of 
strain-,  -I  noticed,  never  once  went  from  him, 
asleep  or  awake. 

Then  little  spasms  of  terror  would  cross  his 
white  features,  which  he  would  try  to  shake  off. 
Yet  still  I  did  not  lose  confidence  that  now,  under- 
standing his  disease,  I  could  make  a  cure. 

Of  course  we  left  Ballyferriter  the  next  day. 
To  catch  the  first  train  from  Dingle  we  had  to 
leave  in  the  dark  of  the  morning,  and  dark  it  was, 


140      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

the  moon  having  sunken.  A  curious  thing  hap- 
pened :  In  a  wild,  lonely  place  near  Lord  Ventry's 
woodlands,  groups  of  silent-moving  figures  be- 
gan to  pass  us  on  the  road.  The  whole  country, 
as  everybody  knows,  was  disturbed  at  the  time  by 
groups  of  armed  men  raiding  in  the  nights. 
I  grew  timid. 

"Who  are  these?"  I  whispered  to  the  old 
driver.  "Whisht!"  he  snarled  at  me. 

"But  who  are  they?"  I  persisted. 

"  'Tis  little  sense  ye  have,  for  an  Irishman," 
he  said.  I  then  said: — 

"Are  they  Sinn  Feiners?" 

"How  would  I  know?"  he  growled  at  me. 

The  Colonel  had  caught  the  words,  "Sinn 
Feiner,"  it  seemed.  He  gripped  the  driver. 

"Halt  awhile,  driver,"  he  said.  "I  want  to 
see  these  men;  I  won't  be  long."  He  was  just 
leaping  from  the  car,  when  the  driver,  with  some 
magic  word  he  had,  set  the  horse  prancing.  I 
caught  the  Colonel's  arm. 

"Are  you  mad?"  I  said  to  him. 

"Mad!"  and  he  flung  his  head  up;  the  horse 
was  still  rebelliously  dancing  along  the  road. 

"Yes,  mad,"  the  driver  shot  at  him;  "them 
fellows  would  destroy  you,  and  the  likes  of  them 
clothes  on  your  back!"  The  Colonel  was  still 
in  khaki. 


The  figures  had  vanished.  We  were  recklessly 
rushing  along  through  places  where  there  was 
not  the  faintest  glimpse  of  light  of  any  kind  upon 
the  road. 


VII 

When  I  had  him  seated  in  the  train  I  began 
to  think  of  the  remedy  I  would  try.  Since  he  was 
haunted  by  the  vision  of  the  reverse  of  the  Brit- 
ish Empire  I  would  speak  of  its  obverse.  After 
all,  one  could  make  out  a  case  for  it.  Had  it 
not  spread  Christianity,  I  would  say,  into  those 
wild  lands,  throwing  some  certain  share  of  its 
wealth  and  its  choicest  children  into  the  work? 
Then,  its  glorious  pioneers — their  gallant  for- 
tunes, their  fame — might  one  quote  of  them: 

"Only  the  actions  of  the  just 
Smell  sweet  and  blossom  in  the  dust!" 

Then  I  would  attempt  to  show  what  a  bless- 
ing those  vast  hinterlands  are  to  a  mother-country, 
how  they  are  as  a  very  sporting  jungle  for  the 
younger  sons  who,  remaining  at  home,  must  gam- 
ble away  the  estates.  Lastly,  I  would  speak  of 
the  stream  of  wealth  that  has  been  for  centuries 
flowing  into  England  itself  from  those  seemingly 
inexhaustible  sources.  Of  that  one  could  speak 


142      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

with  confidence.  ...  So  I  would  speak  to  him; 
but  I  would  not  begin  yet  awhile,  for  he  was  sun- 
ken into  some  deep  reverie :  he  had  not  yet-  quite 
shaken  off  his  wild  visions-  of  the  night. 

We  stopped  at  a  little  place  called  Emlough, 
if  I  remember  right,  and  resuming  our  journey  I 
made  an  attempt  to  speak:  but  he  raised  his  hand, 
motioning  me  to  silence.  Soon  afterwards  a 
crowd  of  English  soldiers,  very  tired-looking, 
armed  to  the  teeth,  got  into  our  carriage,  and  I 
thought  I  saw  the  Colonel  shudder.  To  start 
with  a  colonel  a  discussion  on  the  two  sides,  the 
glory  and  the  shame  of  the  British  Empire  in  a 
carriage  full  of  soldiers  might  lead  to  the  most 
unimaginable  results  as  things  were  just  then, 
so  I  was  forced  to  hold  my  peace.  And  these 
soldiers  kept  us  company  until  we  reached  home ! 
I  could  see  that  their  presence  had  made  Mac 
Gillicuddy  very  excited.  And  there  were  other 
incidents  as  well  to  play  upon  him.  In  Tralee 
we  saw  groups  of  armed  policemen  lining  the 
main  street;  presently  we  saw  military  motor 
lorries  bringing  some  Sinn  Fein  prisoners  to  trial 
— young  lads,  they  stood  daringly  upright  in  the 
hooded  waggons,  with  bare  steel  all  round  them. 
We  noticed  how  the  people  moved  quickly 
through  the  streets  in*  a  sort  of  gloomy  silence, 
peering  into  the  hooded  waggons  as  they  passed 
in  quick  succession. 


COLONEL    MAC    GILLICUDDY    143 

It  was  dark  night  when  we  reached  the  city. 
The  next  day  I  would  make  my  first  attempt  to 
win  Mac  Gillicuddy  from  that  fixed  idea  that  was 
ruining  his  mind. 


VIII 

We  were  weary.  I  threw  myself  into  a  deep 
chair.  The  Colonel  seated  himself  at  the  table, 
opened  the  evening  paper  he  had  bought  at  the 
door  as  we  entered,  and  became  engrossed  in  it, 
it  seemed.  Presently  he  rose.  "Pardon,"  he 
said  carelessly,  and  went  out,  the  paper  still  in 
his  hand. 

He  spoke  so*  calmly,  as  if  by  having  at  last 
made  up  his  mind  on  some  definite  plan,  he  had 
crushed  his  excitement  into  quiescence,  that  I 
thought  of  questioning  him  as  soon  as  he 
returned.  But  there  was  no  sign  of  his  return- 
ing! I  went  seeking  him  at  once,  with  a  grow- 
ing agitation  in  my  mind.  He  was  nowhere  in  the 
house.  Without  a  moment's  delay  I  was  rush- 
ing through  the  streets,  sharply  peering  at  all 
that  I  met  or  overtook.  And  the  streets  were 
crowded  and  uneasy.  As  in  Tralee  and  Dingle 
they  were  swarming  with  squads  of  soldiers  with 
their  helmets  and  packs  on  them;  and  batches  of 
heavily-coated  policemen,  with  white,  strained 


144      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

faces,  went  silently  and  swiftly  about  what- 
ever business  they  had  on  hand.  Military  mo- 
tors and  military  lorries  were  recklessly  tearing 
through  the  dimly-lit  darkness.  And  the  people 
seemed  hurrying  too,  and  silent. 

For  fully  three  hours  I  dived  hither  and  thither 
through  wide  and  narrow  streets — through 
squares  lit  by  arc-lamps  and  through  filthy  pass- 
ages where  there  were  no  lamps  of  any  kind.  In 
an  alley  way  a  poor  beggarman  was  singing; 
his  hair  was  long  and  matted,  he  had  a  thick,  un- 
kempt beard,  he  wasn't  four  feet  in  height,  an 
old  overcoat  that  he  was  wearing  soaked  water 
from  the  muddy  ground.  Yet  he  was  singing 
heartily,  and  the  name,  Ireland,  was  in  every 
line : — 

"  'Tis  Ireland,  'tis  beautiful  Ireland, 

Ireland,  the  gem  of  the  sea, 
Oh,  my  heart  is  at  home  in  old  Ireland, 
And  I  wish  that  old  Ireland  was  free." 

He  had  a  pair  of  nigger's  bones  in  his  right 
hand,  he  flourished  them  to  the  rhythm.  I  don't 
think  I  should  have  noticed  him,  but  in  three 
different  places  I  came  on  him  that  night.  I  be- 
gan to  think  in  the  end  that  maybe  he  was  not  a 
beggarman  at  all. 

Exhausted,  I  again  reached  my  lodgings  in  the 
market  square;  how  wide,  free  and  airy  it  was 


COLONEL    MAC    GILLICUDDY    145 

after  the  narrow  streets!  The  moon  held  half 
of  it  in  a  white  still  light,  the  other  half  was  black 
with  shadow,  in  which  a  few  odd  lamp-lit  win- 
dows glimmered  very  warm  and  mellow,  con- 
trasting with  the  wan  moonlight. 

"My  friend  has  not  returned?" 

"No,  sir;  there  is  no  trace  of  him.  Johnny, 
here,  saw  him  going  out." 

"Well,  send  in  whatever  you  have;  I'm  faint- 
ing." 

"Yes,  sir;  and  there's  the  paper." 

I  had  little  mind  for  it,  but  as  it  lay  there  on 
the  table,  I  saw  in  scare  head-lines: — 

"Massacre  at  Amritsar! 
2,000  Indians  Shot  Down  by  the  English. 
500  Killed  Outright." 

There  was  little  other  information  except  the 
name,  General  Dyer.  I  must  confess  I  did  not 
cast  one  thought  on  those  murdered  Indians,  nor 
on  their  murderers;  my  one  thought  was  Mac 
Gillicuddy.  This  was  the  news  he  had  been  so 
intent  upon;  it  was  this  dreadful  story,  come  so 
pat  upon  its  hour,  that  had  sent  him  out — and  he 
had  gone  so  calmly  out !  Though  the  paper  trem- 
bled in  my  hand,  my  weariness  had  fallen  from 
me.  I  was  sweaty  and  cold,  yet  anxious  to  be 
up  and  doing;  the  shock  those  three  lines  of  print 
had  given  me  had  called  out  those  reserves  of 


146      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

spirit  that  in  such  moments  so  dominate  the  mere 
body. 

"I  must  find  him,"  I  said.  I  swallowed  some 
cups  of  tea,  one  after  another,  and  rose  up  to 
make  again  for  the  streets. 

At  that  moment  I  heard  steps  on  the  stairs, 
and  in  flung  Mac  Gillicuddy  himself,  quickly  and 
nervously!  An  appalling  wistfulness  was  in  his 
features,  his  eyes  were  wide  and  pale,  his  lips 
weak.  He  threw  himself  into  a  deep  chair  and 
buried  his  head  in  his  hands.  And  these  hands, 
too,  seemed  so  pale,  long-fingered,  sweaty! 

"What  has  happened?"  I  said. 

Without  removing  his  hands  from  his  face  he 
shook  his  head.  He  wouldn't  speak. 

Meanwhile,  outside,  the  whole  city  seemed  to 
have  gone  into  riot;  that  it  was  in  train  for  it  I 
had  noticed  in  my  rushing  through  it.  The 
tramp,  tramp  of  soldiers  went  by,  the  rattling  of 
their  horses  and  waggons.  Far  away  a  rebelly 
song  was  being  sung  firmly  and  defiantly.  Sud- 
denly we  heard  cries  and  screams,  and  hundreds 
of  voices: — 

"Release  the  man,  release  him!"  "Shame  on 
ye,  ye "  "Shame!"  "Shame!"  "Shame!" 

I  listened  to  it  all,  still  staring  at  the  broken 
figure  sunken  into  the  chair.  Again  I  heard  the 
cries,  "Release  him,  release  him!"  and  "Let  him 


COLONEL    MAC    GILLICUDDY    147 

go,  ye ."  And  then  all  the  cries,  shouts,  run- 
ning, singing,  seemed  to  gather  up  into  one  long, 
loud,  triumphant  roar.  I  leaped  to  the  window, 
I  saw  a  great  crowd  below,  a  group  of  policemen 
in  the  centre,  buffetted  by  the  people,  and  a  wild, 
squirming  little  figure  in  their  grasp — my  little 
ballad-singer,  I  thought.  They  were  all  in  the 
moonlight;  but  a  different  crowd  were  surging 
into  the  square  from  a  far-off  angle,  singing;  and 
it  was  their  coming  that  had  caused  the  cheering. 
The  little  prisoner  squirmed  more  than  ever,  and 
at  last  the  policemen  had  to  let  him  go.  They 
then  formed  up  into  a  dense  mass,  and  began  to 
fight  their  way  back  towards  the  opening  they 
had  come  from.  All  was  confusion;  stones  be- 
gan to  fly  through  the  air,  glass  was  broken. 
Little  knots  of  people  stood  still,  clutching  one 
another,  and  others  began  to  whirl  around  the 
knots,  like  currents  in  a  rock-strewn  river.  Pres- 
ently, other  shouts,  yells  and  screams,  screams  of 
terror,  arose  in  another  corner  of  the  square;  very 
shrill,  they  were,  very  high-pitched;  and  at  once 
the  whole  crowd  broke  into  a  wild  stampede :  an 
armoured  car  had  entered  from  a  side  street  at 
a  tearing  rate  and  was  encircling  the  square ;  the 
place  emptied  itself  in  a  flick  of  time,  lay  again 
open  to  the  moonlight  and  to  the  broad  shadows. 
Still  the  car  tore  around  it,  circling  it  three 


148      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

times.  At  last  it  stood  still.  At  its  first  com- 
ing Mac  Gillicuddy  had  dragged  himself  wea- 
rily to  my  side;  together  we  had  watched  its  an- 
tics; now  we  were  staring  speechless  at  it,  as  it 
stood  there,  throbbing  in  the  moonlight  in  a  pool 
of  shadow;  it  seemed  to  look  around  to  see  where 
next  it  should  make  a  spring.  We  saw  two 
young  heads  rise  above  it.  They  laughed. 
They  spoke.  If  Mac  Gillicuddy  caught  the 
words,  I  did  not;  but  he  raced  from  the  room  as 
if  struck  by  a  whip.  I  leaped  after  him.  I 
flew  down  the  stairs.  He  banged  through  the 
glass  doors.  I  opened  them.  I  saw  him  making 
headlong  for  the  car.  The  two  heads  turned 
towards  him.  Then  down  they  went.  He 
leaped  at  the  car,  crying  out — I  know  not  what. 
A  succession  of  revolver  shots  rang  out,  seemed 
to  fly  everywhere.  Then  the  car  blew  a  cloud 
of  smoke  and  moved.  He  was  all  limbs,  right  in 
front  of  it.  I  could  see  nothing  for  a  moment — 
only  a  lifting  cloud.  Then  in,  beneath,  that 
little  cloud  I  saw  a  figure  crawling  slowly  on  all 
fours,  like  a  beast,  stupidly,  heavily — a  most  ri- 
diculous posture.  It  only  went  a  little  way, 
when  down  it  flopped,  kissing  the  ground.  And 
all  the  time  the  car  circled  the  square.  It 
swerved  to  escape  the  bundle  that  now  lay  in  its 
path,  and  then  shot  swiftly  out  of  sight  by  the 
side  street  it  had  entered  from.  There,  in  the 


COLONEL    MAC    GILLICUDDY    149 

middle   of  the   moonlight,   lay   Mac  Gillicuddy, 
dead,  with  his  secrets. 

It  seems  he  had  gone  to  the  Sinn  Fein  head- 
quarters and  laid  certain  plans  before  them  for 
the  wrecking  of  the  British  Empire,  offering  his 
services  in  the  carrying  out  of  them.  They  would 
not  listen  to  him.  It  was  then  he  returned  to 
me,  a  man  who  had  suddenly  given  way  to  de- 
spair. 

He  sleeps  in  Muckross  Abbey.  Hundreds 
of  other  Mac  Gillicuddys — soldiers  also — sleep 
there,  too.  Considering  the  story  of  his  life,  the 
manner  of  his  swift  death,  it  is  curious  to  try  to 
imagine  how  those  old  Gaelic  warriors  received 
him,  their  kinsman.  With  aloofness?  or  with 
kindly  welcome? 

I,  who  knew  him  so  well,  I  can  picture  him  only 
as  a  poor  abashed  and  tongue-tied  figure,  shrink- 
ing away  from  their  hard  gazing,  their  fierce 
brows.  May  he  rest  in  peace. 


AN  UNFINISHED  SYMPHONY 


AN  UNFINISHED  SYMPHONY 

I 

I  WOULD  dare  it — and  my  heart  leaped  and  sang 
as  soon  as  I  had  spoken.  God  knows,  I  was 
drained  of  spirit.  If  those  young  men  of  that 
countryside,  those  young  Republicans,  who  were 
ready  to  dare  all,  to  take  five  years  in  jail  without 
making  any  defence,  whose  brothers  had  died  that 
the  infant  'Republic  might  be  set  up,  who  would 
die  themselves  to  maintain  it — if  those  young  men 
I  was  finding  flat,  shallow,  dull,  commonplace!  in 
myself  was  the  fault,  as  I  told  myself  ten  times  a 
day.  Every  morning  now  I  arose  unfit  for  the 
day's  work,  (I  was  organising  the  Intelligence  De- 
partment of  the  Republican  Volunteer  Army  in 
that  eastern  part  of  County  Cork) ,  and  during  the 
actual  conferences  I  would  find  my  mind  wander- 
ing, and  I  would  find  the  men  looking  at  me 
shrewdly,  perplexed  at  my  casual  way  of  doing  the 
thing;  and  yet  I  could  not,  try  as  I  might,  win 
back  to  my  old  energy;  I  had  grown  suddenly  stale 
— that  was  all  that  was  to  be  said. 

And  then  suddenly,  and  by  the  merest  chance, 
I  heard  that  Eibhlin  Ni  Chartha,  or  Eileen  Mac- 

153 


154      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

Carthy,  if  you  find  it  easier  to  remember  that 
form  of  her  name,  was  in  Knockacashlawn,  which 
is  not  very  far  from  Mogeela,  which  is  itself  on 
the  railway — that  she  would  be  there  for  some 
weeks  with  some  relatives  of  hers,  and  that  her 
coming  there  had  already  made  a  difference.  A 
difference?  — surely,  surely!  I  had  no  doubt  at 
all  I  would  find  a  very  efficient  Cumann  na  mBan 
in  the  place,  ready  for  all  emergencies;  I  would 
find  them  learning  Irish,  learning  First  Aid,  learn- 
ing how  to  cook  on  an  open  fire,  above  all,  I  would 
find  them  learning — Eibhlin  herself!  Yes,  I 
would  go  to  her. 

There  would  be  no  need  to  explain  anything. 
Owing  to  my  way  of  living  these  few  years  past, 
running  from  place  to  place,  seldom  daring  to 
sleep  at  home,  we  had  never  "fixed  matters  up," 
as  people  say,  but  I  was  confidently  certain  that 
Eibhlin  would  become  one  day  my  wife,  and  this 
I  knew  that  she  knew  just  as  well  as  I.  In  the 
wells  of  her  spirit  I  would  bathe.  We  would 
laugh,  we  would  cycle,  we  would  dance  the  rinnce 
fada  in  the  farm  kitchens,  we  would  play  cards 
with  the  labourers,  we  would  borrow  the  farmers' 
hunters  and  make  the  frosty  roads  ring  beneath 
our  hoofs,  we  would  go  shooting  in  the  bogs — we 
would  climb  the  high  hills,  we  would  surprise  the 
simple  people  who  were  giving  us  so  large-heart- 
edly  of  their  stores,  of  their  pity,  of  their  love. 


AN    UNFINISHED    SYMPHONY 

They  would  say :  "Those  Sinn  Feiners — look  how 
merry  they  can  be — and  they  not  knowing  the 
night  they'll  be  flung  into  prison,  or  maybe  shot 
or  hanged!"  Then,  after  five  days,  or  eight,  or 
ten,  I  would  take  up  my  work  again,  and  push 
ahead  with  it,  rejoicing  in  those  gifts  of  insight 
and  tact  that  God  had  given  me.  Yes,  I  would 
dare  all  and  go  to  her. 


II 

This  was  the  risk:  the  police,  as  I  well  knew, 
had  still  the  thought  that  I  had  never  left  the 
Mogeela  district !  I  had  heard  that  even  still  the 
young  men  in  those  parts  would  stroll  lazily  and 
sleepily  from  their  fathers'  houses  of  a  morning — 
with  little  or  nothing  to  do  these  wintry  days — 
and  find  a  few  policemen  disappearing  round  a 
corner — policemen  who  had  been  peeping  in  at 
their  windows  or  listening  at  their  doors  and  shut- 
ters, seeking  a  strange  accent,  a  strange  face,  seek- 
ing my  poor  self!  For  me,  there  was  risk,  but 
as  I  told  myself,  for  the  Republic  there  was 
greater  risk  in  my  staying  where  I  was,  daw- 
dling at  the  work  instead  of  doing  it.  So  could 
it  be  reasoned  out,  I  said,  my  going  to  Knock- 
acashlawn;  but  only  little  had  reason  to  say  to 
it:  I  was  doing  right  in  going  there,  reason  or  no 


156      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

reason.  I  knew,  I  felt  deep  down  in  me,  that  I 
was  doing  right! 

And  the  first  stage  of  my  journey  went  well 
with  me.  I  kept  to  the  up-hill,  down-hill,  ancient, 
overgrown  by-roads  of  the  pack-horse  centuries, 
some  of  them  nowadays  just  tracks  on  a  hillside; 
and  I  dashed  into  the  railway  station  at  just  the 
right  moment  to  fling  myself  into  a  carriage — I 
knew  the  lack  of  a  ticket  would  make  no  differ- 
ence— all  the  men  on  that  part  of  the  line  were 
"ours."  They  knew  me  of  old.  "Thank  God! 
Thank  God!"  I  said,  almost  aloud,  when  I  found 
the  train  moving  nicely  off,  passing  the  stolid  po- 
licemen, who,  chin  in  air,  quite  efficiently  surveyed 
us  as  we  passed,  catching  sight,  perhaps,  of  a 
young  man,  or  at  least  of  a  large  handkerchief 
wiping  the  sweaty  face  and  brow  of  a  young  man 
in  a  third  class  carriage.  Thank  God,  so  much 
was  over,  and  I  had  three-quarters  of  an  hour  be- 
fore anything  else  could  happen. 

I  found  myself  examining,  rather  with  interest, 
two  old  maiden  ladies,  the  only  other  human 
souls  in  the  carriage,  and  I  was  surprised  to  find 
myself  doing  so;  already  I  was  being  renewed;  or 
else  T  could  not  have  given  myself  up  to  this  quiet 
contemplation  of  them.  They  were  dainty  old 
ladies,  sisters  to  all  seeming:  the  piece  of  purple 
ribbon  in  the  furs  of  the  one  was  flesh  of  the  flesh 
of  the  piece  of  purple  ribbon  in  the  hat? — bonnet? 


AN    UNFINISHED    SYMPHONY     157 

— hat?  of  the  other.  In  equal  parts  they  had 
shared  out  their  rather  ample  stock  of  old-fash- 
ioned jewellery — I  could  match  one  thing  with 
another.  Sisters,  yet  with  a  difference,  as  two 
blossoms  on  the  one  plant  may  differ.  Their 
heads  were  turned  from  me,  they  were  intent  on 
the  wrintry  landscape  passing  by,  so  intent  that  I 
knew  that  everyone  of  all  their  thoughts  was 
gathered  on  my  poor  lone  hunted  self.  The  little 
lady  on  the  left  was  reserved-looking,  long-faced  a 
trifle,  almost  colourless,  her  lips  too  thin,  too 
closely  shut.  Her  sister  was  pleasanter,  more 
easily  read;  she  was  the  blossom  that  had  caught 
the  sunshine,  the  relics  of  long-faded  roses  were 
still  in  her  cheeks,  and  her  eye  was  lively.  The 
paler  lady  had  no  trouble  at  all  in  keeping  her 
gaze  on  the  bleak  fields  running  by,  but  after  a 
hundred  little  twitchings,  ahems,  stirrings,  the 
plump  little  lady  suddenly  swept  her  eyes  full 
upon  me,  at  the  same  time  delicately  drawing  the 
tip  of  a  very  slight  little  flimsy  handkerchief  to 
and  fro  several  times  along  her  still  ruddy  little 
lips.  She  found  me,  of  course,  lost  in  a  brown 
study. 

They  were  both  a  little  birdlike  of  aspect,  they 
always  are ! — but  this  old  lady  now  surveying  me, 
with  some  surprise,  I  warrant,  was  a  song  bird 
that  would  impulsively  burst  (in  her  youth,  of 
course)  into  trills  and  runs  and  cadenzas,  if  only 


158      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

an  unexpected  gush  of  sunbeams  fell  on  her  as  she 
walked  in  the  fields,  while  her  sister,  I  thought  to 
myself,  could  not  do  with  less  than  a  branch  of 
waxen  candles  and  a  little  crowd  of  well-mannered 
ladies  and  gentlemen  about  her  before  her  care- 
ful notes  would  fall — perhaps  with  unexpected 
passion — from  her  rather  firm  lips.  Poor  old 
chits — they  had  rubbed  through  the  long  years, 
never  agreeing  in  anything,  never  exactly  of  the 
same  mind,  pertly  impossible,  often  frankly  of- 
fensive to  each  other — they  could  not  guess  how 
much  one  thing  they  were  to  me. 

I  saw  now  that  while  I  had  been  riding  pell- 
mell  through  the  bright  morning,  seemingly  reck- 
less, the  sense  of  danger,  the  need  for  alertness 
had  been  more  and  more  becoming  the  whole  of 
me,  knotting  me  up,  as  it  were.  I  remembered 
how  when  I  had,  unapprehended,  flung  myself  into 
the  train  and  found  it  begin  to  move  off,  I  remem- 
bered the  "Thank  God"  that  had  fallen  from  my 
lips,  and,  now  so  quietly  to  recall  it,  I  felt  myself 
opening  out  from  that  knot  of  care,  opening  out, 
spreading  myself  as  a  plant  after  the  night  is 
over,  ready  to  drink  in  whatever  sun  and  winds 
there  may  be  abroad.  And  there  before  my  eyes 
were  this  pair  of  sister-birds — either  a  puzzle  if 
the  other  were  not  by.  They  were  a  gift  from  a 
quiet  old  world  that  had  not  been  mine  for  a  very 
long  time.  The  pair  of  them  there  between  me 


AN    UNFINISHED    SYMPHONY      159 

and  the  dull  wintry  landscape  on  which  the  colour- 
less dusk  was  falling,  lifting,  falling,  lifting — they 
were  like  an  old-fashioned  melody — not  insistent, 
not  emotional,  not  headlong,  just  a  gentle  singing, 
a  soft  rhythm,  with  a  pensive  undersong,  with 
little  to  say  except  that  all  roughness  and  noise 
and  haste  and  danger  were  better  forgotten  for 
ever  and  ever.  Only  once  did  they  speak.  The 
brighter  little  lady  said: — 

"  'Tis  a  very  dull  evening,  very  dull." 
And  the  other  gravely  nodded  her  head.  But 
I  found  myself  smiling,  and  saying  "Dull! — No! 
no ! — 'Tis  a  sweet  old  evening — I  am  winging  to 
my  gradh  gealt  to  my  bright  love,  though  you  do 
not  suspect  it,  nor  do  you  suspect  how  much  more 
keenly,  ardently,  passionately  I  will  drink  her  into 
me  for  your  sitting  here  beside  me  in  your  withered 
maidenhood." 


Ill 

At  the  next  station  in  a  flutter  of  colour  and 
laughter  and  swift,  long-gloved,  white-gloved 
hands  there  broke  in  upon  our  quietness  two  young 
girls — of  whom  one  was  called  Mamie  and  the 
other  Lil — as  we  were  all  presently  to  know. 
They  were  richly  befurred  and  wrapped,  hidden 
away  almost;  for  all  that,  however,  one  caught 


160      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

sight  of  dainty  flesh,  dainty  ribbons,  creamy  white- 
ness, linen-whiteness,  soft  pinks,  little  bits  of  flash- 
ing jewellery,  too,  and  very  bright,  frankly-youth- 
ful eyes.  But  it  was  rather  their  swift  glances, 
their  unhidden  excitement,  their  meaningless  yet 
significant  words  and  phrases  that  best  told  what 
fun  they  were  after.  It  is  a  country  of  big,  square- 
built  houses,  and  quite  certainly  one  of  them  would 
be  blazing  with  lights  and  throbbing  with  dancing 
couples  this  night  behind  its  screen  of  branchy, 
silent  trees. 

Mamie,  the  younger,  could  not  keep  still;  and 
when  her  fresh,  musical  voice  leaped  out  upon  us 
every  cell  of  her  healthy,  warm,  exhilarated  being 
was  living  in  it. 

"Oh! — I  do  hope  Dickie  will  not  fail  us! — He 
won't?  he  won't?"  She  was  staring  up  in  the  face 
of  her  sister,  who  sat  opposite  her. 

"You  can't  trust  him,"  a  voice  far  quieter, 
paler,  answered,  the  lips  alone  moving. 

There  was  a  silence,  the  bright  eyes  withdrawn 
from  her  sister's  face  were  busy  with  some  vision 
of  their  own. 

"I  know  what  he'll  say  .  .  .  Oh !"  There  was 
a  silvery  laugh,  running  off  into  a  boyish  chuckle. 

"Yes."  The  laugh  was  not  answered,  only  the 
words. 

"He'll  say,  'Do  you  remember  that  night  at 
Bransby's?'" 


AN    UNFINISHED    SYMPHONY     l6l 

A  soft  look  of  comprehension  lit  up  the  quieter 
eyes  of  the  taller  girl.  "Yes,"  she  answered 
again. 

"And  I'll  say  .  .  .  Oh!  oh!"  She  was  choking 
with  laughter,  lowering  her  face  into  all  her  pink, 
linen  and  creamy  mantlings. 

"You'd  never  guess  what  I'll  say?" 

"Be  quiet,  Mamie." 

"I'll  say:  'What  night  at  Bransby's?  I  was 
never  at '  ' 

She  could  not  finish  for  laughing. 

Sh.     Be     quiet.     You    mustn't.  .  .  .  He'd 


U    ' 


"And  the  stupid!  he'll  lift  up  his  eyebrows,  you 
know.  He'll  say,  'Haw!'  three  times.  'Haw! 
Haw  1  Haw !'  '  She  spoke  them  with  an  effort  at 
self-mastery,  very  quietly  in  Dickie's  voice,  except 
the  last,  which  fell  into  her  own. 

How  my  two  old  birds — oh,  they  had  aged  im- 
mensely!— were  watching,  were  listening  1 

"He's  stupider  than  Will,  but  he's  nicer,  he's 
much  nicer.  I  like  him  much  better,  I  love  him!" 

Lily's  quiet  eyes  glanced  with  some  touch  of 
shame  in  them  towards  the  old  ladies — had  they 
heard?  And  Mamie's  reckless  glance  followed, 
and,  at  what  she  saw,  Dickie  suddenly  seemed  to 
fall  quite  out  of  her  mind.  She  was  frankly  ex- 
amining now  one,  now  the  other  of  the  two  faded 
sisters,  her  thoughts  passing  quite  legibly  across 


1 62      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

her  face.  Who  are  they?  Where  are  they  go- 
ing? What  makes  her  do  that?  The  other  is 
doing  it  now.  Are  they  cold?  Were  they  there 
when  we  come  in?  Poor  old  things,  you're  very 
queer-looking,  though  I  don't  know  what's  the 
matter  with  you.  .  .  .  Then  quite  suddenly  she 
turned  from  them,  and  caught  up  Will  and  Dickie 
again.  "Yes,  for  he's  not  conceited,  and  Will  is, 
he's  as  conceited  as  a  poll-parrot.  I  know;  be- 
cause the  night " 

But  Lily's  dainty  shoe  stretched  out  in  a  little 
petulant  kick,  and  the  other  shrugged  her 
shoulders,  and  swept  us  all  again  with  a  glance 
full  of  inquiry:  You're  not  listening?  It  doesn't 
matter  whether  you  are  or  not — not  a  bit.  .  .  . 
Then  she  suddenly  leaped  from  her  place  and  flat- 
tened her  nose  on  the  window-pane. 

We  were  entering  a  little  sideway  station:  the 
train  was  screaming.  She  swooped  again  upon 
us: — 

"Here  we  are,  old  Lil!     Hurry,  girl,  hurry!" 

She  was  again  at  the  window,  and  again  she 
turned  to  us,  this  time  with  a  great  change  in  her 
voice :  it  was  low,  hushed  with  surprise. 

"Lil,  'tis  .  .  .  John!" 

The  gentler  girl,  on  hearing  the  word,  stood 
suddenly  upright,  and  the  voice  in  which  she  spoke 
was  fuller,  richer,  than  her  sister's  had  been;  how 
could  a  voice  so  change ! 


AN    UNFINISHED    SYMPHONY      163 

"Tisn't?     Mamie!     Mamie!" 

Mamie  was  again  looking  at  her. 

"I'm  sure.       'Tis,  'tis,  Lil." 

"Oh!  Mamie "  Then  there  was  a 

whispering,  and  both  began,  nervously,  quickly, 
to  gather  their  wraps  and  little  parcels  to- 
gether. 

I  opened  the  door  for  them.  The  younger  girl 
leaped  down  and  shook  hands  with  a  young  man. 
He  swung  from  her  and  folded  the  quieter  girl 
in  his  arms,  passionately  and  without  a 
word. 

I  saw  that.  I  stood  upright  myself,  I  do  not 
know  what  gesture  I  made,  nor  if  I  said  any 
words,  in  Irish  or  English.  I  found  myself  stand- 
ing, swaying,  for  the  train  was  again  travelling, 
my  hat  in  one  hand,  my  other  hand  straying  some- 
how over  my  head,  my  forehead.  And  I  knew  I 
was  frightening  the  old  ladies. 

"Excuse  me,"  I  said,  huskily.  "I  got  a  dizzi- 
ness, a  dizziness." 

"If  you  sit  down?" 

"Yes."     I  sat  down.     I  was  trembling. 

A  few  moments  afterwards  I  was  telling  myself 
that  it  was  time  I  had  put  my  work  from  me, 
when  the  sight  of  two  lovers,  strangers  to  me, 
embracing  on  a  country  platform,  had  so  played 
upon  me. 

It  was  six  months  since  I  had  last  seen  Eileen 


164      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

MacCarthy;  six  months  full  of  tragedies,  of 
shooting,  of  imprisonments  since  last  I  had  held 
her  in  my  arms. 

I  would  hold  her  in  my  arms  this  night!  A 
great  ecstasy  seized  me.  I  felt  the  train  whirling 
me  along — whirling  a  thing  not  entirely  conscious. 
It  was  also  whirling  along  two  old  maiden  ladies. 
That  I  knew.  But  they  were  far  away  from  me. 
.  .  .  The  rapture  passed.  They  were  still  here 
before  me.  I  should  love  to  help  them — if  only 
one  could! 

And  then  I  began  to  think  that  the  two  stages 
of  this  journey  had  been  like  two  movements  in  a 
sonata — the  first  a  pensive,  quiet  movement;  the 
second,  a  movement  far  brighter,  yet  still  reminis- 
cent somehow  of  the  first,  except  for  that  suddenly 
swift  and  passionate  close.  And  as  I  thought  of 
this  I  found  myself  staring  at  the  old  ladies,  as 
one  might  stare  at  two  children  who  had  not  yet 
put  their  teeth  in  that  fruit  we  call  life — and  my 
lips  were  moving  in  silent  speech.  "But  there'll 
be  a  third  movement — Oh,  yes!  There'll  be  a 
third  movement,  brighter,  swifter,  deeper, — it  has 
begun,  it  has  begun.  .  .  ." 

And  I  was  already  glowing  with  the  thought  of 
it,  something  was  surging  within  me;  this  night 
I  would  make  certain  that  Eileen  MacCarthy 
would  be  my  wife  for  ever.  These  times,  these 
times  of  terror  and  partings  and  jailings  and  sud- 


AN    UNFINISHED    SYMPHONY     165 

den    deaths    were    not    times    for   delaying   in, 
and.  .  .  . 

Anyway  I  am  glad  to  remember  I  had  the  grace 
to  bid  the  old  ladies  good-bye  as  I  leaped  from  the 
train. 


IV 

I  rushed  for  my  bicycle.  The  station,  I  noted 
gleefully,  was  empty  of  all  policemen.  I  was  soon 
on  the  dark  road  riding  along.  I  saw  the  lighted- 
up  train  curve  away  in  the  distance,  its  bright 
plumes  of  cloud  breaking  into  fragments;  I  heard 
its  rhythm  begin  to  merge  into  the  night. 

The  clouds  were  gone.  The  sky  was  spangled 
all  over  with  wide-eyed  stars:  how  beautiful 
among  them  were  the  frost-still  branchy  treetops ! 
I  breathed  deeply,  deeply.  I  was  drinking  a  cup 
full  of  joy  in  a  night  of  serene  and  stately  beauty. 

My  two  old  ladies  were  still  journeying  on :  now 
they  were  chattering,  I  hoped;  how  colourless 
their  version  of  this  short  journey  would  be — 
poor  souls,  whose  eyes  had  never  opened !  Mamie 
and  Lily  were  now  whirling  and  laughing  in 
a  swift  dance  in  that  lighted-up  old  square  house 
within  its  park  of  solemn  trees.  I  did  not  envy 
them.  There  was  room  for  all.  Truly  night 
is  a  deep  womb  .  .  .  "deeper  than  daylight 


l66      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

thought,"  as  the  German  poet  puts  it.     Soon  .  .  . 

"Halt!  Who  goes  there?  Haiti  Get  down 
.  .  .  we'll  fire !"  The  voice  was  roaring,  I  felt 
my  knees  weaken,  grow  cold.  "Right.  We're 
right." 

A  whistle  was  blown.  I  heard  rifles  grounded. 
I  was  caught.  The  policemen  at  the  first  railway 
station  were  not  so  unobservant  as  I  had  thought. 

That  night  I  spent  in  a  lonely  cell  in  Cork  jail, 
pacing  it,  pacing  it,  disentangling  a  hundred 
thoughts,  a  hundred  anxieties.  Gradually  the 
heat  went  from  my  brain,  and  I  sat  down  on  the 
edge  of  my  bed.  I  tried  to  reckon  what  time  it 
was.  It  was  about  two  o'clock.  The  silence  was 
appalling.  Far  away,  I  heard  the  scream  of  a 
distant  train. 


A  BYE-PRODUCT 


A  BYE-PRODUCT 

I 

AMONG  the  mountaineers  of  that  corner  of  the 
Comeraghs  there  was  a  sluggishness  of  feeling 
not  to  be  found  anywhere  else  in  Munster.  Per- 
haps they  thought  themselves  beyond  the  reach 
of  any  law  in  their  secret  fastnesses;  or  it  may 
be  that  Sean  O'Leary's  explanation  was  the  true 
one :  they  were  a  slow  people  by  nature,  he 
would  say — what  were  they  but  the  descendants 
of  Raleigh's  English  folk,  of  Boyle's  English 
folk,  for  all  the  perfect  Irish  that  was  their 
mother-tongue?  O'Leary  was  from  the  west, 
was,  of  course,  a  Gael  of  the  Gaels — "The 
O'Learys  that  were  wedded  to  Ireland,"  he 
would  quote  from  Egan  O'Rahilly — and  was, 
perhaps,  something  too  hard  on  the  simple 
people  of  the  east.  But  at  last  even  this  slow 
people  began  to  stir  when,  in  the  autumn  of  1918, 
it  seemed  quite  certain  that  England  would  put 
the  Conscription  Act  in  force  in  Ireland. 

II 

Nicholas  Motherway  was  tearing  at  the  hunk 
of  wheaten  bread  like  the  poor  foolish  creature 

169 


170      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

he  was.  No  one  had  ever  seen  those  flat,  un- 
shapely features,  those  wandering  eyes,  take  on 
the  keenness  of  intelligence:  at  best  one  caught 
in  that  empty  face  only  a  vague  expectancy,  a 
gleam  that  began  to  die  away  before  it  had  half 
ripened.  The  mouth  was  now  active,  and  the 
strength  of  the  jaws  and  teeth  was  plainly  seen, 
but  no  sooner  would  the  feeding  be  done  with 
than  the  lips  would  droop  open  again  and  the 
whole  chin  and  lower  face  sag  down  helplessly. 
His  father,  an  old  man,  stared  at  him  with  pity, 
with  contempt;  and  only  for  the  trouble  that  a 
year  ago  had  fallen  upon  himself,  indeed  there 
would  have  been  no  pity  at  all  in  this  nightly 
reckoning  of  his  son.  That  trouble,  that  un- 
expected stroke  of  paralysis,  had  left  him  a 
shrunken,  palsied,  grey-faced  creature,  weak  and 
broken,  and  now  it  was  only  in  short  moments  of 
forgetfulness  that  the  old  thoughts,  free  and 
rough,  would  rise  uppermost  in  his  mind  and 
break  from  him  in  snarling  words. 

Voices  and  footsteps  were  hurrying  to  their 
open  door.  The  son  started,  rose  uncertainly, 
a  scared  look  wavering  in  his  eyes.  His  father 
cried  at  him  angrily: — 

"Where  would  you  be  going?  Sit  down,  let 
ye." 

The  lump  sat  down  awkwardly,  timidly. 

"Come  in,  men,  come  in,  let  ye." 


A    BYE-PRODUCT  171 

Sean  O'Leary,  Sean  Wall,  a  farmer's  son 
named  George  Hankard,  a  man  named  Gum- 
bleton,  a  few  others  stepped  rather  shyly  in, 
filling  the  doorway,  shutting  away  the  flood  of 
dusky,  filmy  gold  that  was  abroad  between  the 
running  hilltops  and  the  paling  sky. 

It  was  Sean  O'Leary  came  forward;  indeed,  it 
was  he  who  had  gathered  the  others  from  their 
far-scattered  houses. 

"  'Tis  how  'tis,  Maurice,"  he  began,  "we're 
after  learning  that  the  police  are  after  sending 
our  names  and  all  about  us  to  Dublin,  and  that 
to-morrow  maybe,  or  the  day  after,  the  military 
will  be  coming  to  drag  us  from  our  homes  to 
fight  for  them,  to  fight  for  England,  and " 

The  old  man  was  looking  at  them  shrewdly; 
he  was  always  glad  when  anything  came  to  break 
in  upon  his  empty,  listless  days;  he  raised 
his  hand,  with  something  of  command  in  the  ges- 
ture. 

"And  tell  me,"  he  said,  "isn't  England  after 
getting  enough  already?  Every  single  man  that 
could  be  coaxed  out  of  this  country  by  lies  or 
love  or  money  to  fight  for  her  in  this  cruel,  un- 
christian war — isn't  she  after  getting  them? 
And  tell  me,  them  that  are  left,  wouldn't  it  be  a 
crime  against  the  Almighty  God  to  force  them 
to  fight  against  their  will,  men  that  hate  the  very 
name  of  her?"  His  hand  came  flat  down  on  the 


172       THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

deal  table  and  stayed  flat  on  it,  his  eyes  were 
buried  in  them. 

"That's  what  we  say,"  O'Leary  jerked  out  in 
his  quick,  nervous  way;  and  the  others  repeated 
his  phrase,  or  others  like  it,  thinking  that  the  old 
man's  strong  flow  of  words  needed  at  least  so 
much  notice  from  them. 

With  greater  warmth  the  old  man  spoke 
again : — 

"  'Twould  be  a  crime  and  a  mighty  crime 
against  the  Almighty  God  for  England  to  put 
the  bayonet  into  a  boy's  hand  and  say  to  him: 
'Stab  them  and  slay  them  and  kill  them,  and 
slaughter  them  whether  'tis  in  your  mind  to  do 
so  or  not.'  ' 

He  had  lifted  himself  from  the  chair:  the 
others  could  see  the  rickety  table,  on  which  his 
left  hand  was  leaning  heavily,  trembling  to  the 
trembling  of  his  limbs,  but  all  this  he  had  himself 
forgotten.  His  eyes,  usually  so  grey  and  wist- 
ful, were  burning  upon  the  group,  holding  them 
in  wonder,  for  they  had  had  no  thought  of  being 
received  in  such  a  manner. 

"That  boy  of  mine,  the  only  one  left  me,  I'd 
rather  see  him  stretched  here  on  this  table,  and 
the  habit  on  him,  than  fighting  for  them  and 
making  a  great  stir,  maybe — Nicholas!"  he 
cried,  turning  his  head;  but  the  boy  had  slipped 
away  from  the  men  into  the  little  room  where 


A    BYE-PRODUCT  173 

his  bed  was,  and  was  now  peeping  through  the 
loosely-jointed  boards  at  the  group  his  father 
was  dominating,  "Nicholas,  come  hither,  let  ye," 
and  he  turned  again  to  the  young  men,  "they 
say  they're  not  particular  who  they  take.  .  .  ." 
"It  don't  matter  a  damn,"  Sean  O'Leary  broke 
in  swiftly,  "not  one  of  us  they'll  get,  not  one. 
Rich  and  poor,  strong  and  weak,  we're  gathering 
together;  and  if  they'll  lay  hands  on  any  one  of 
us  whatsoever  there'll  be  shots  firing  on  the  hills 
I  tell  ye,  firing  at  all  hours  of  day  and 
night.  .  .  ." 

"And   is   it   now   ye're   gathering   together  ?" 

"This  very  night  we're  gathering  in  the  Name 

of  God.     And  we'll  have  a  meeting  in  the  coom 

and  we'll " 

"The  blessing  of  God  on  the  work — 'tis  holy." 
And  so  his  son,  Nicholas  Motherway,  the 
poor  lump  of  a  fool,  went  with  them.  At  first 
he  shambled  awkwardly  behind  them,  for  he 
feared  that  they  might  at  any  moment  break  out 
into  mockery  of  him,  as  used  so  often  to  happen 
at  the  turf  cuttings,  at  the  threshings ;  and  it  was 
a  long  time  before  it  crept  into  his  slow  brain 
that  all  that  was  over  and  done  with.  Little  by 
little,  somehow,  as  they  went  on  across  the  broad 
shoulders  of  the  hills  from  house  to  house,  the 
crowd  growing  larger,  louder,  and  more  spirited, 
he  found  himself  becoming  more  and  more  one 


174      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

with  them  and  they  with  him.  ...  It  was  a 
night  of  silvery  starshine,  large,  open  and  wide, 
and  the  great  empty  spaces  of  the  mountain- 
land  seemed  to  be  waiting,  to  be  waiting  for 
some  battle-call  to  sound  on  them — that,  or  the 
descent  of  angels  in  robes  of  white.  .  .  .  The 
dawn  was  almost  come  upon  the  mountains  be- 
fore Nicholas  burst  in  with  unaccustomed  noise 
and  vigour  on  the  old  man,  who  had  sat  at  the 
hearth  all  night  awaiting  him.  He  was  full  of 
bubbling,  incoherent  speech,  at  the  end  of  which 
his  wondering  father  was  half  aware  that  a 
dreadful  battle  had  been  fought  in  the  coom, 
that  thousands  upon  thousands  of  men  had  been 
all  night  tramping  across  the  hills. 


Ill 

Nicholas,  after  some  bad  blundering,  suddenly 
left  the  ranks  and  placed  himself  side  by  side 
with  Sean  O'Leary  himself,  Who  was  drilling 
them.  Nobody  minded  the  irregularity:  what 
was  he  but  an  idiot?  Again  and  again  the  group 
of  men  in  the  lonely  coom  formed  "fours,"  every 
time  more  nearly  perfect,  and  still  the  lump  of  a 
man — he  was  far  bigger  and  heavier  than  the 
best  of  them — although  quite  young,  hesitated 
about  trying  it  himself. 


A    BYE-PRODUCT  175 

"Again!  again!"  he  cried  out  suddenly,  and 
again  Sean's  voice  gave  out  the  command,  and 
again  the  little  squad  went  through  the  trick. 
Then  the  simpleton  clapped  his  hands  with  joy, 
burst  out  into  drivelling  laughter,  leaped  back 
to  his  place  in  the  ranks  and  stood,  stiff  as  the 
best  of  them,  awaiting  the  word.  This  time  he 
did  it,  and  the  whole  crowd  broke  into  wild  and 
merry  cheering. 

That  night,  too,  he  had  a  tale  for  his  waiting 
father. 


IV 

A  few  nights  afterwards,  O'Leary  himself 
did  not  come  to  drill  them :  Lingwood  it  was  that 
took  his  place,  and  Lingwood  was  not  skilful 
enough  to  bring  them  on  to  anything  new  nor 
alert  enough  to  keep  them  in  good  trim,  so  that 
before  half  the  night  was  spent  they  were  lying 
listlessly  along  the  edge  of  the  stream  that  ran 
through  the  levels.  It  was  noisy  and  swift:  its 
parent  hills  were  not  far  off,  indeed  they  were 
looking  right  down  on  it,  with  night  beginning 
to  darken  and  chill  their  climbing  shadows. 

Wall  was  lying  lazily  along  it;  his  head  and 
shoulders  were  leant  back  into  the  soft  foliage 
of  a  willow,  and  his  right  foot,  stretched  from 


176      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

him,  was  idly  toeing  a  lump  of  rock  that,  half 
sunken  in  the  bank,  hung  above  the  stream. 
Presently,  with  a  sudden  splash  and  gurgle  it 
fell  from  the  soft  mould  into  the  waters,  the 
debris  discolouring  them.  When  they  cleared 
again,  the  worn  surface  of  the  stone  laughed 
brightly  up  at  them  through  the  turf-coloured 
stream.  Lingwood  at  once  roused  himself, 
knelt,  and  lifted  the  stone  from  the  stream's  bed. 
He  felt  it  in  his  hand,  he  weighed  it;  it  was  just 
the  right  stone  for  throwing  from  the  shoulders. 

At  midnight  Nicholas  entered  the  cabin  with  a 
clatter  of  noise: — 

"Eirigh,  'athar,"  he  said,  with  boldness  and 
pride,  "is  agamsa  ta  an  sgeal  duit" — "Rise, 
father,"  he  said,  "  'tis  I  that  have  the  story  for 
you." 

And  he  would  scarcely  give  him  time  to  rise. 

"Easy,  boy,  easy,"  his  father  was  imploring 
him,  "what  is  the  story  you  have?" 

"This  is  no  place  for  it,"  he  answered;  "this 
is  no  place  for  it;  come  hither." 

And  the  half-dressed,  awkward  old  man,  with 
the  white  hair  tumbling  down  about  his  eyes,  and 
his  grey  flannel  shirt  open  at  the  throat,  had  to 
follow  him  into  the  common  room  where  alone  in 
the  house  there  was  space  to  stir  and  leap.  The 
turf,  spread  all  along  the  wide  hearth,  lit  the 
place  with  a  red  glow. 


A    BYE-PRODUCT  177 

"Sit  down  there,  father."  And  impetuously, 
the  simpleton  put  him  sitting  back  against  the 
side  wall,  leaving  the  whole  floor  of  trampled 
earth  free  for  himself.  The  old  man  was 
sharply  peering  at  the  boy's  face,  trying  to  find 
the  expression  in  his  eyes.  He  had  to  look  up 
at  him;  his  height  was  huge,  huger  than  before, 
for  that  ungainly  droop  with  which  he  used  to 
carry  his  shoulders  was  falling  away  from  him: 
besides  his  head  was  up  in  the  mellow  dusk  that 
hovered  under  the  thatch,  and  only  fitfully  would 
the  glow  of  the  fire  catch  and  throw  the  whole 
shoulders,  head,  and  face  into  relief.  Up  in 
that  fitfully-lighted  darkness  the  great  head  was 
swaying  and  tossing  with  a  new  pride,  a  new 
alertness. 

Nicholas  had  thrown  his  coat  from  him, 
tightened  his  belt,  braced  himself  up.  He 
glanced  behind  him,  and  placed  his  heel  against 
the  partition  that  ran  across  the  room.  His 
great  right  hand  bent  back  sharp  at  the  wrist, 
bracketing  an  imaginary  stone,  he  balanced  him- 
self stiffly,  back  and  forth,  until  his  whole  body 
was  stretched  like  a  bow;  then  with  a  wild  whoop 
of  triumph,  he  lifted  himself  and  threw  the 
imaginary  stone  hurtling  through  the  air.  After 
a  moment  of  blindness,  of  confusion  of  mind,  so 
huge  the  swinging  figure  in  the  little  space,  so 
swift  the  rush,  so  wild  the  yell,  the  old  man 


178      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

knew  that  his  son  was  smiling  down  on  him  from 
the  darkness  beneath  the  thatch,  was  swaying 
before  him.  He  tried  to  smile  in  return,  but 
there  must  have  been  something  of  uncertainty, 
of  fear  in  it,  for  suddenly  Nicholas  threw  him- 
self along  the  settle,  flung  his  legs  carelessly 
over  its  straight  arm,  and  with  wild  laughter 
shook  the  place — that  place  where  for  many 
years — ever  since  the  last  of  the  trusty  sons  had 
gone  to  America — the  sound  of  song  or  fiddle  or 
laughter  had  never  been  heard! 

"Whisht,  Nicholas,  whisht;  look  at  the  hour 
it  is;  and  how  do  you  know  what  strangers  would 
be  abroad  these  terrible  times." 

The  son  did  not  hear  him:  he  was  laughing  at 
more  than  his  father,  he  was  remembering  the 
faces  in  the  coom,  how  they  had  looked  at  him 
in  his  moment  of  triumph.  His  mother,  a  soft, 
poor  creature,  broke  urgently  from  the  inner 
room:  she  was  fastening  her  bodice: — 

"For  God's  sake,  Nicholas,  lie  down  in  your 
bed;  what  is  it  is  happening  to  ye  at  all?" 

Nicholas  leaped  at  her,  laid  playful  hands  on 
her,  warm  and  huge  and  hard  they  were,  lifted 
her,  swung  her  across  the  floor  and  planted  her 
near  the  hearth  on  the  remaining  sugawn  chair 
that  was  always  there.  Then  swiftly  again,  he 
sprang  to  his  place  at  the  partition;  once  more 


A    BYE-PRODUCT  179 

he  balanced  himself,  slowly,  slowly,  with  a  fierce 
grin  of  determination  on  his  brows,  and  his  lips 
blown  out.  It  seemed  an  age  before  he  would 
make  the  throw.  At  last  he  leaped  in  the  air, 
this  time  with  no  yell  of  triumph  however,  with 
rather  a  broken  groan,  and  the  end  of  the  spring 
was  a  stumble,  as  weak  and  straggling  as  the  cry. 
He  gathered  himself  together,  with  effort  it 
seemed,  only  to  fall  again  on  the  settle,  panting 
and  puffing  in  exaggerated  exhaustion. 

At  first  they  did  not  know  it  for  acting,  and 
both  rose  in  terror  from  their  chairs:  but  again 
the  wild  laughter  broke  from  him;  his  head  was 
flung  back,  and  they  could  see  the  strong  teeth 
shining  in  his  mouth,  regular  as  a  wall  of  cut  stone. 

"For  God's  sake,  Nicholas,  don't  be  frighten- 
ing us,"  his  mother  began  again,  but  by  this  some 
spirit  had  leaped  in  the  breast  of  the  poor  old 
palsied  man: 

"Whisht,  woman,"  he  said;  "if  he  can't  have 
his  sport  here  where  is  he  to  have  it?"  and 
turning  disdainfully  from  her,  "Who  was  it, 
who  was  it?"  he  cried,  his  head  stretched  out, 
and  his  eyes  glowing. 

"The  Lintagh!"  Nicholas  cried  back  to  him  in 
a  smother  of  laughter,  "The  Lintagh  of 
Tooreenaglas !" 

The  eldest  son  of  every  Lingwood  family  in 


180      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

that  glen  was  known  as  a  "lintagh" — a  word 
whose  meaning  is  not  clear — and  Maurice 
Motherway  knew  the  Lintagh  of  Tooreenaglas 
for  a  giant  of  a  man,  fierce  and  rough  and  proud: 
he  looked  at  his  son,  now  sitting  there,  a 
strange  alertness  upon  him,  with  wonder  and 
admiration;  then  he  rose  and  caught  his  hand 
and  shook  it  and  prayed  the  blessing  of  Christ 
on  his  strength  and  courage. 


Earlier  than  now  was  usual  with  him,  Nicholas 
returned  from  his  drilling:  there  was  but  little 
life  in  him. 

"You're  early  to-night,  a  mhic?"  his  father 
said,  peering  at  him,  as  was  now  his  habit,  to  dis- 
cover his  temper.  "Is  it  how — how  Sean  did 
not  come  to  ye?" 

"It  is  not." 

He  threw  himself  on  the  chair  nearest  to  the 
door,  and  bent  upon  the  old  gun  he  had  been 
drilling  with.  He  was  frowning  upon  it,  twisting 
and  turning  it  in  his  rough  hands.  The  lamp 
threw  its  light  down  on  the  bent  neck:  it  looked 
like  a  bit  of  a  young  pine  from  which  the  bark 
had  been  newly  stripped  away. 

"Put  it  from  you  now,  Nicholas,  put  it  away 


A    BYE-PRODUCT  l8l 

till  the  next  time;  you  could  never  tell  who'd 
step  in  to  us." 

"  'Tis  a  crazy  old  thing  it  is."  He  spoke 
sullenly,  his  fingers  tugging  viciously  at  the  iron 
work  upon  it. 

'Twill  do  what  we  want  of  it." 

"  'Tis  a  crazy  old  thing,  it  is!"  The  words 
were  louder  and  louder. 

"Ah,  well;  ah,  well!" — the  old  man  was 
hobbling  back  to  the  place  he  had  risen  from, 
when  he  heard  a  roar: 

"  'Tis  a  foolish,  crazy  old  thing  it  is — there 
to  it!" 

It  went  flying  across  the  room,  full  tilt  against 
the  whitened  wall,  it  fell  heavily  on  its  muzzle 
and  lay  still.  And  his  father  saw  Nicholas  rise 
up,  and  go  out  the  door  and  stand  there  for  a 
long  time,  his  two  hands  stuck  fiercely  in  his  belt, 
huge  and  black  and  angry,  against  the  starry 
sky,  uncertain  where  to  turn  or  what  to  do. 


VI 

In  spite  of  Ireland's  protest,  in  spite  of  a 
hundred  advices,  in  spite  of  the  difference  the 
coming  in  of  the  Americans  was  making  in  the 
war,  England,  it  seemed,  was  intent  on  putting 
the  Conscription  Act  in  force  on  the  Irish  people. 


182      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

But  that  did  not  explain  the  eager  whispering  of 
the  group  of  Comeragh  men  in  the  lonely  dark- 
ening coom.  They  were  guessing,  arguing, 
questioning  about  a  thing  that  had  happened 
among  them  that  day:  in  a  place  four  miles  off 
from  the  little  hamlet,  a  policeman,  all  but  life- 
less from  loss  of  blood,  had  been  found  lying  on 
the  road,  his  head  battered  in  as  by  a  stone  or 
cudgel.  The  men  in  the  coom  had  no  thought 
of  how  it  had  happened  or  of  who  it  was  that 
had  done  it.  The  story  that  had  already  spread 
over  the  mountains  was  that  four  masked  men 
had  leaped  upon  the  policeman,  downed  him, 
and  taken  away  his  arms;  and  this  story  they 
hardly  knew  whether  to  believe  or  discredit. 
But  for  the  most  part  it  was  of  what  would 
follow  that  they  were  speaking;  they  knew  that 
there  would  be  a  thorough  searching  of  the  dis- 
trict, lines  of  soldiers  would  be  scouring  the 
mountains,  with  aeroplanes  circling  overhead; 
and  O'Leary  was  warning  them  that  the  tiniest 
revolver  found  in  their  possession  would  mean 
a  sentence  of  two  years  in  prison,  while  any  sort 
of  rifle.  ...  As  he  spoke  a  voice  jerked  out: 
"Here's  Nick  Motherway  down  to  us."  They 
turned  and  looked  up  the  path;  they  saw  him 
leaping  down,  making  short  cuts  from  angle  to 
angle,  springing  from  crag  to  crag,  a  gun  held 
firmly  above  his  head.  As  he  came  running  to- 


A    BYE-PRODUCT  183 

wards  them,  they  all  at  once  looked  at  one 
another  and  widened  a  little  away  from  him. 
O'Leary  himself  had  gone  pale:  he  was  high- 
strung,  he  needed  warning  before  he  could  be 
sure  of  himself.  He  tried  to  speak  lightly: — 

"That's  a  fine  gun  you  have,  Nick." 

"  'Tis  my  father's  gun." 

"  'Tis  not  your  father's  gun." 

"Oh,  but  it  is." 

"  'Twas  your  father's  gun  you  had  last 
night.  .  .  ." 

"'Twasn't;  but  an  old  crazy  thing  wouldn't 
shoot  off  for  me." 

"Let  me  see  that  one  you  have ;  let  me  handle 
it." 

"No;  my  father  told  me  not  to  let  it  out  of 
my  hands." 


VII 

While  shooting  in  the  coom,  one  after  another 
of  them,  a  scout  of  theirs  brought  word  that 
motor  lorries  had  already  begun  to  bring  squads 
of  soldiers  to  the  lonely  barrack  where  the 
wounded  policeman  was  shouting  in  hi«  delirium. 
Yes;  to-morrow  aeroplanes  would  be  circling 
over  the  mountains  and  lines  of  soldiers  would 
be  scouring  across  them,  over  and  hither.  Not 


184      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

a  cowshed,  not  a  dairy-room  but  would  be 
searched,  not  a  turf  stack  but  would  be  tumbled 
to  the  ground. 

The  young  men  stopped  their  shooting  and 
gathered  into  one  little  knot  in  that  darkening 
valley,  and  they  spoke  in  whispers.  They  had 
not,  up  to  this,  ever  come  into  handigrips  with 
English  soldiers,  neither  had  any  of  them  ever 
been  in  prison.  But  they  knew  how  the  Galtee 
mountains  had  been  parcelled  out  and  searched 
and  researched  after  the  dreadful  affair  at  Knock- 
long;  and  they  all  agreed  that  it  would  be  a  fool- 
ish thing  to  sleep  in  their  homes  that  night. 

That  night  there  was  the  sound  of  wailing  in 
lonely  glens:  the  war  seemed  to  have  come  to 
their  doors. 

"Mother,  maybe  'twould  be  as  well  for  me 
not  to  be  here  if  the  soldiers  come  surrounding 
us  during  the  night." 

"Are  you  certain  of  that,  a  Thomais? 
Wouldn't  it  be  better  for  you  to  stay  and  answer 
their  riddling?  What  are  you  afraid  of? 
Aren't  we  able  and  ready  to  prove  to  the  world 
that  you  didn't  stir  from  the  bog  the  whole  day 
long?" 

"  'Tis  better  for  us  all  to  be  on  the  one  word, 
mother;  them  fellows  are  too  clever  for  the  like 
of  us;  we'd  think  we  were  mastering  them,  and 


A    BYE-PRODUCT  185 

maybe  'tis  hanging  ourselves  we'd  be,  or  hanging 
one  another!" 

The  mother  would  give  way:  it  was  better 
they  should  be  all  on  the  one  word;  but  even  as 
she  gave  her  consent  her  eyes  would  be  greedily 
feeding  themselves  on  the  boy's  face,  and  her 
mind  would  be  already  yielding  to  the  fears  that 
would  rush  overwhelmingly  upon  her  as  soon  as 
she  had  bolted  the  door  for  the  night  on  him! 

There  was  no  such  parting  in  Nicholas's  house, 
no  such  wailing  when  the  door  was  fastened  and 
the  lamp  quenched.  For  there  was  Nicholas 
himself,  and  in  high  glee,  too,  after  his  bout  of 
successful  shooting  in  the  glen.  It  was  a  lonely, 
far-away  house,  and  no  word  whatever  had 
reached  the  father  or  mother  of  the  attack  on  the 
policeman. 

But  late  in  the  night  when  all  were  in  bed,  and 
the  house  was  as  dark  and  as  silent  as  the  moun- 
tain top  above  it,  a  muffled,  earnest  hammering 
sounded  on  the  bolted  door.  Soon  there  was 
whispering  from  bed  to  bed: — 

"Nicholas,  Nicholas,  is  it  for  you  that  knock- 
ing is?" 

uNo,  'tis  not  for  me  it  is.  What  would  they 
be  wanting  with  me?" 

"Will  you  rise  up  and  ask  them  what  it  is  they 
want?" 


l86      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

"I  will  not  rise  up  to  them." 

"They'll  never  stop.  'Tisn't  the  police,  the 
police  would  be  calling  out  to  us  to  open." 

"  'Tis  you  they'll  be  asking  for,  whoever  'tis." 

The  hammering  continued,  not  louder,  how- 
ever, than  before.  The  old  woman  spoke  to  her 
husband:  her  voice  sounded  softer  than  by  day: 

"  'Tis  better  for  yourself  to  speak  to  them. 
Nicholas,  don't  be  listening  to  them  at  all,  nor 
speaking  with  them  at  all." 

Then  suddenly,  as  if  grown  careless  or  des- 
perate, the  hammering  redoubled  in  force,  in 
speed,  and  a  voice  was  calling  to  them  to  open 
at  once. 

'Tis    the    Gaelic   he   has."     The    old   man 
raised  his  voice: 

"In  the  Name  of  God  who  are  you,  and  what 
do  you  want  of  us?" 

"Open,  or  'tis  destroyed  you'll  be." 

"My  God!  'tis  destroyed  we'll  be,  he  says. 
I'll  open.  .  .  .  I'll  open  to  ye." 

He  limped  out  and  pulled  the  bolts  without  a 
word.  O'Leary  rushed  in-. 

"Where's  that  gun?" 

"What  are  you  saying?" 

"Where's  Nicholas;  where's  that  gun  he 
had?" 

"The  gun — 'tis  in  smithereens  it  is.  If  'tis 
the  bits  of  it.  ...  Look,  here  .  .  .  here." 


A    BYE-PRODUCT  187 

O'Leary  looked  at  the  battered  old  thing. 
That  was  not  the  gun  he  had  come  for. 

"My  God!  answer  my  question,  and  let  me  be 
off  out  of  this.  Blame  yourself  if  ye  have  the 
police  and  the  soldiers  dragging  the  two  of  ye  off 
before  the  night  is  out.  Ye  won't  answer  my 
question." 

"There's  Nicholas  there  for  ye." 

He    opened    the    rickety    old    door    in    the 
partition   and  shoved   in   the   candle.     O'Leary 
brushed  past  it. 

"Nicholas,  where's  that  gun  you  had?" 

A  sleep-warmed  face  looked  up  at  him:  there 
was  a  harvest  of  laughter  mantling  it,  every- 
where. 

"Where  is  it,  tell  me?" 

"Can't  ye  look  for  it?  If  ye  find  it,  carry  it 
off  with  ye.  Slan  beo  leat,  a  ghunna  Horn !" 

"I  tell  you  you'll  be  taken  to  Cork,  to  the  jail, 
if  'tis  found  in  the  house:" 

"Find  it!"  And  then  his  laughter  rang  out 
suddenly  and  bo-istcrously,  careless  of  the  night. 
The  old  man  came  hastening  to  him. 

"Nicholas,  let  ye  be  quiet,  be  quiet,  'tisn't 
right  for  ye  to  be  laughing  this  hour  of  the 
night." 

"I'm  done  with  ye,"  O'Leary  blurted  out,  and 
left  them  there.  He  plunged  down  the  bo- 
hereen:  a  little  knot  of  silent  men  awaited  him. 


1 88      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

"Have  ye  it?" 

'Tisn't  in  it.  I'm  sure  of  it.  Here's  his 
father's  old  thing.  'Tis  little  information 
they'll  get  from  Nicky,  I  warrant  ye." 

They  went  their  way,  warning  the  scattered 
people  to  get  rid  of  whatever  old  guns  they  had 
before  the  police  came  in  the  morning. 


VIII 

"I'm  waiting  for  ye.     I'm  waiting  for  ye." 

It  was  true,  the  old  man  had  been  awaiting 
them.  Now  he  rose  up  defiantly,  but  his  teeth 
could  be  heard  chattering  in  his  head  with  excite- 
ment, not  with  fright. 

The  two  policemen  stepped  in,  bending  their 
huge  bodies  under  the  lintel,  darkening  the  place. 
Soldiers,  fully  armed,  helmeted,  followed  them; 
two  others  remained  outside  the  door,  their  rifles 
grounded. 

The  policemen  without  a  word  began  to  search 
the  house,  while  the  soldiers,  from  Staffordshire 
they  were,  gaped  at  their  white,  strained  faces. 
But  soon  they  turned  their  boyish  eyes  on  the 
passionate,  shrunkcn-up,  trembling  old  man  who 
was  following  the  policemen  from  point  to  point, 
right  at  their  coat  tails,  mocking  them.  Some- 
times he  would  scramble  in  front  of  them :  "Here 


A    BYE-PRODUCT  189 

ye  are  Sergeant;  'tis  my  own  feathers,  the  best  of 
them  is  in  it.  Stick  your  bayonets  into  it  and 
see  for  yourself.  Wouldn't  ye  take  it  with  ye? 
'Twould  be  useful  to  ye  down  in  that  nest  of 
yours.  .  .  .  And  what  is  it  you're  after  finding? 
Whatever  it  is,  take  it  off  with  you:  you're  wel- 
come to  it.  Nothing!  And  didn't  I  know  ye'd 
be  here  this  blessed  morning,  and  didn't  I  hide 
the  guns  and  the  swords  and  the  cannons  up 
in  the  rocks,  up  in  the  rocks  of  the  moun- 
tains. Sure  'twas  for  hiding-places  God  made 
them.  .  .  ." 

Nicholas  was  all  the  time  standing  foolishly 
in  the  middle  of  the  floor;  he  was  bigger  than 
either  of  the  policemen,  the  soldiers  were  only 
manikins  beside  him.  He  had  not  spoken  a 
word;  one  could  make  no  guess  at  his  thoughts: 
perhaps  his  mind  was  just  a  wide  vacancy  dis- 
turbed on  its  far  edges.  He  made  no  wonder  of 
his  father's  flow  of  bitter  words. 

"My  boys  in  America,  the  four  of  them,  'tis 
sore  set  they'd  be  to  see  ye  wrecking  the  place 
like  this:  'tis  out  on  ye  they  would,  and  the  King 
of  England  himself  wouldn't  stay  nor  hinder 
them." 

"Let  ye  stop  that  gab."  One  of  the  policemen 
could  no  longer  keep  his  temper. 

"I  will  not  stop  it:  the  house  is  mine." 

The  wife  came  to  him. 


190      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

"In  the  Name  of  God,  Maurice,  let  ye  hold 
quiet." 

"What  for  would  I  stop?  Is  it  lies  or  the 
plain  truth  I'm  telling?" 

He  roared  out  the  words  at  them.  His 
passion  seemed  to  have  shaken  his  disease  from 
his  limbs,  from  his  tongue. 

"Let  ye  keep  silent,  whatever  'tis  ye're  telling." 

"Lay  hands  on  me,  why  don't  ye !  Lay  hands 
on  me !  Or  on  him.  Finish  God's  work,  let  ye. 
He  laid  hands  on  us — blessed  be  His  Holy 
Name.  But  He  didn't  finish  the  work.  Let  ye 
finish  it,  and  the  King  of  England  won't  see  your 
children  begging  their  bread.  .  .  ." 

"Hold  quiet,  I'm  tellingye.  'Tis  well  ye  know 
why  I  haven't  ye  bundled  into  the  waggon  by  this, 
handcuffed  and  trussed.  Hold  quiet,  or  I'll " 

The  sergeant  had  almost  gripped  the  old  man 
by  the  shoulder,  and  the  old  man  had  made  no 
retreat  from  him.  But,  mouthing  unintelligibly, 
Nicholas  slid  in  between  them.  No  one  could 
catch  his  words,  whether  he  threatened  or  ex- 
cused. The  mother  threw  herself  upon  him, 
speaking  wildly;  her  husband  she  trusted  not  to 
go  beyond  the  harm  of  words,  but  not  her  son. 
"Not  you  at  all,  Nicholas,"  she  was  saying,  "not 
you  at  all."  *The  searching  had  ceased;  soldiers 
and  all,  they  were  staring  at  the  great  boy-man,  in 


A    BYE-PRODUCT  191 

whom  life  had  come  suddenly  to  the  blossoming. 
He  threw  his  mother  from  him,  and  with  a  sudden 
cry  of  joyous  recollection  swept  towards  the  door. 
"Stop  him,"  the  sergeant  cried;  "don't  let  him 
out."  Instinctively  he  had  given  the  command: 
he  had  no  reason  for  it.  The  soldiers  made  a 
fence  with  their  bayonets.  Nicholas  baulked  at 
the  steel,  stretched  a  hand  between  the  blades  and 
made  a  grab  at  one  of  the  soldiers.  But  another 
jabbed  him  viciously  in  the  forearm  with  a  bay- 
onet, and  he  leaped  back  from  them,  his  eyes 
fierce  with  anger,  his  brows  scowling:  he  was  at 
bay,  the  blood  running  down  his  hand.  In  the 
silence  the  old  man  suddenly  fell  down,  heavily, 
without  a  word  or  groan. 

IX 

A  wild  south-wester  was  blowing  over  the  Com- 
eraghs  that  night — the  rain  would  follow.  In 
the  thick  darkness  O'Leary  climbed  the  stony 
pathway  towards  the  Motherways'  house.  He 
listened.  There  was  not  a  sound  from  within. 
Yet  on  account  of  the  gale  he  had  to  pound  the 
door.  He  heard  the  old  woman's  heavy  boots 
as  she  came  to  open  it. 

"How  is  he?" 

"He's  sleeping,  thanks  be  to  God.     They  say 


192       THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

he  won't  be  anything  the  worse  for  it,  but  sure 
'tis  well  I  know  he's  a  good  deal  nearer  to  the 
grave,  Sean." 

"  'Tis  well  he  didn't  go  off  on  you;  be  thank- 
ful for  that  much." 

"Sure,  I  am.  But,  Sean,  whisper  to  me — 
Nicholas  is  inside," — she  nodded  at  the  little 
bed-room — "and  he  has  a  great  gun  with  him, 
wherever  he  got  it,  and  I'm  frightened  to  have 
it  with  him." 

Sean  was  looking  at  her.  She  came  to  him 
and  caught  him  earnestly  by  the  shoulders. 

"If  you  could  get  it  from  him,  Sean?"  and 
her  eyes  were  cold  with  terror. 

He  shook  his  head.  "Don't  be  afraid,"  he 
whispered. 

He  tapped  at  the  dark-painted  door  of  the 
side  room.  He  got  no  reply.  He  lifted  the 
latch  and  stepped  in:  the  old  man  lay  stretched 
before  him  on  the  bed  like  a  corpse,  grey-faced; 
he  looked  twenty  years  older  than  when  Sean  had 
last  seen  him.  From  the  sleeping  face  Sean 
tried  to  keep  his  eyes  from  straying,  but  at  the 
same  time  he  knew  that  Nicholas  was  sitting  by 
the  bed,  erect,  watchful,  like  a  hunter,  and  that  a 
heavy-looking  gun  was  laid  across  his  knees, 
gripped  in  rigid  hands.  He  did  not  speak  a 
word,  he  gave  no  sign  of  recognizing  his  visitor. 

Sean  withdrew  just  as  quietly  as  he  had  stepped 


A    BYE-PRODUCT  193 

in.  He  found  the  old  woman  standing  quite  still 
in  the  self-same  position  as  when  he  had  left  her. 
'Twould  be  no  use  to  ask  him  for  it,"  he 
whispered  her.  "Don't  be  afraid :  there's  no  fear 
they'll  come  here  again  for  some  time." 

One  does  not  linger  on  a  mountain  side  when 
a  southwest  wind  is  sweeping  a  sea  of  rain  against 
it,  but  the  thing  that  set  Sean  O'Leary  plunging 
through  the  darkness,  leaping  headlong  from 
rock  to  rock  was  not  the  discomfort  of  the  rain 
and  wind,  but  the  vision  that  had  seized  on  his 
brain — the  meagre,  death-like  figure  laid  flat  upon 
the  bed,  the  wild  creature  watching  by  it,  the  gun 
across  the  huge  knees,  the  fierce  grip.  And  in 
the  light  of  that  vision  the  task  of  freeing  his 
native  land  that  he  and  others  like  him  had  taken 
upon  their  shoulders  seemed  suddenly  to  have  be- 
come immensely  heavier,  infinitely  more  involved, 
more  surely  fraught  through  and  through  with 
living  pain:  one  of  those  moments,  when  we  see 
into  the  life  of  things  had  come  to  him.  Next 
day  he  drilled  his  men  as  usual — as  usual,  if  not 
more  quietly,  yet  more  firmly,  with  more  grip. 
He  had  become  surer  of  himself;  perhaps  the 
progress  he  was  making  was  not  unlike  Nicholas 
Motherway's,  only  on  a  higher  plane. 


THE  PRICE 


THE  PRICE 

I 

ALTHOUGH  it  had  often  happened  since  the  spring 
softened  the  weather,  that  his  youngest  son,  Cia- 
ran,  did  not  come  home  until  the  day  was  break- 
ing, old  Laurence  Mac  Carthy  could  no  longer 
keep  the  bed  that  night.  He  had  to  rise.  The 
cocks  were  crowing,  and  the  gables  of  the  ruined 
abbey  of  St.  Ciaran,  up  to  which  all  the  lines  and 
ways  of  the  little  town  of  Balliniskey  led,  were 
becoming  a  rich  black  against  the  lightening  sky. 
Very  quietly  he  slipped  from  his  bed;  his  other 
son,  Tom,  the  son  on  whom  all  the  responsibility 
of  the  farm  and  shop  depended,  slept  in  the  next 
room,  and  to  awaken  him  might  only  once  more 
renew  the  bitterness  that  had  arisen  in  the  little 
family  since  Ciaran,  the  younger  son,  had  taken 
to  drilling  on  the  hills  in  the  dark  nights,  if  not, 
indeed,  to  something  far  more  dangerous  than 
drilling.  Very  quietly  he  slipped  from  the  room, 
looking  much  older  and  more  shrunken  than  was 
usual  with  him.  He  held  his  heavy  boots 
clutched  in  under  his  right  arm,  and  his  left  hand 
felt  along  the  handrail  of  the  stairs  in  the  dark- 
ness. His  lower  lip  was  drawn  in  about  the  few 

197 


198      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

teeth  that  remained  to  him,  drawn  in  in  anxiety 
and  alertness.  He  went  through  the  untidy 
shop,  feeling  from  one  bag  of  meal  to  another, 
and  out  into  the  store  at  the  gable  end.  Very 
carefully  he  drew  back  the  bolts  on  the  wicket, 
and  then  he  could  see  right  along  the  whole 
street  of  the  town.  The  cold  of  morning  was  in 
the  air,  and  the  mists  of  autumn  lingered  like 
clouds  in  the  wide  space  where  the  main  street 
opened  into  the  square.  He  saw  a  dog,  he  knew 
it  to  be  Pat  Keily's  dog,  nosing  along  the  street, 
from  door  to  door,  very  silently;  nothing  else 
was  abroad;  the  cocks,  however,  were  still  crow- 
ing lustily  in  the  yards  behind  the  houses;  one 
could  picture  them,  stretching  to  the  skies,  tri- 
umphantly sending  their  voices  to  far  distances. 

"My  God,  protect  him !  my  God,  be  with  him," 
he  was  praying  continually,  and  his  head  was 
quivering,  and  his  lips  were  moving  vigorously. 
He  did  not  want  to  be  seen  there;  above  all,  he 
did  not  want  Tom  to  rise  up  and  find  him  there; 
and  yet  he  could  not  shut  the  wicket  he  had 
opened,  could  not  again  face  up  the  stairs. 

Two  young  men  stood  suddenly  before  him. 
They  had  come  through  Moloney's  stabling  yard, 
leaping  over  the  wall  into  the  little  bohereen  that 
led  up  to  the  hillside.  He  knew  them.  One  was 
the  Casey  boy;  the  other  was  the  schoolmaster's 
son,  Sam  Lillis.  They  stopped  up  suddenly  to 


THE    PRICE  199 

find  him  in  the  wicket  before  them.  "Oh !"  they 
jerked  out,  and  young  Casey  turned  irresolutely 
on  his  heel,  looking  to  see  if  anyone  else  were 
following.  But  Sam  Lillis  gave  a  sort  of  military 
salute : 

"Ciaran, — Ciaran's  after  meeting  with  an  ac- 
cident." 

The  old  man  couldn't  take  it  in.  He  turned 
his  head  halfway  from  the  erect  young  man,  spat 
on  the  ground  and  bent  his  brows  fiercely.  He 
did  the  same  always  when  a  price  was  put  on  his 
stock  at  a  fair;  he  did  it  to  gain  time.  Then  his 
head  swung  up  quickly: 

"  'Sh  I  lave  ye,  himself's  asleep." 

They  were  looking  at  him.  They  had  come 
through  the  yard  in  a  hurry,  in  a  hurry  had  leaped 
over  the  wall,  their  eyes  were  very  bright,  their 
cheeks  flushed.  This  blank  pause  they  could  not 
understand. 

"Ciaran's  wounded  ...  in  the  shoulder. 
Maybe  'tisn't  too  much  after  all.  .  .  ." 

"Wounded?  Ye're  sure  of  that?  God's  will 
be  done." 

"We  are.  We  are.  Look,  they're  coming 
now." 

Lillis  raised  a  hand  to  the  little  group  that  were 
making  down  the  bohereen,  a  hint  of  marching 
even  then  in  the  noise  of  their  coming.  "  'Sh!" 
he  said;  "'sh!" 


200      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

The  old  man  caught  the  boy  Casey's  shoulder. 

"Would  you  go  up,  like  a  good  boy,  and  tell 
Tom  to  come  down  to  us?" 

"I  will,  sir." 

The  little  crowd  were  at  hand.  The  old  man 
stepped  outside  the  wicket — the  opening  was  a 
narrow  one — and  stood  helplessly  by,  bent  down 
like  the  bough  of  an  ancient  tree. 

"Michael,"  he  said  to  Michael  Keohane,  who, 
he  knew,  was  captain  over  them;  "ah,  Michael, 
he's  only  a  boy,  a  slip  of  a  boy." 

But  Keohane,  who  for  the  past  few  years  had 
had  always  more  problems  to  decide  upon  than 
he  was  able  to  come  at,  had  acquired  a  quick  and 
somewhat  hard  way  of  answering  such  questions 
as  took  one  no  further. 

"A  boy,"  he  rapped  out;  "he's  a  damned  sight 
better  than  the  men  of  this  place;  we  could  hear 
them  snoring  through  their  windows — snoring  at 
us !  My  God,  they  made  me  mad.  If  you  go 
first,  Tim,  that  way." 

They  had  him  scarcely  in  the  store  when 
another  of  the  little  band  thrust  in  his  head.  He 
was  pale,  thin,  and  his  teeth  showed  in  the  gums. 

"Mick,  Mick,"  he  whispered  quickly;  "come 
out;  listen;  is  it  a  motor?  Anyway,  'tis  broad 
daylight." 

Keohane  listened  quietly,   for   rather  a   long 


THE    PRICE  201 

time,  it  seemed.     "  'Tis  better  clear  anyhow,"  he 
said.     "We  can't  do  any  more." 

Tom  had  come  into  the  store,  his  face  was  red, 
his  black  hair  was  tossed  about  his  forehead.  He 
had  had  a  full  night's  sleep.  Keohane  shot  a 
glance  at  him. 

"There  he's  for  you ;  'twill  be  some  time  before 
he'll  finish  that  rick  for  you!"  He  turned  on 
his  heel  and  went  out. 

"Don't  mind  him,  Tom;  he's  excited,"  the 
father  said. 

But  Tom  was  examining  the  unconscious  face 
of  his  brother;  his  voice  surprised  his  father. 

'Tis  true  for  him,"  he  said.  "Yesterday  he 
was  nearly  killed  with  the  piking.  I  felt  sorry 
for  him  myself.  Take  him  by  the  feet.  Nell 
will  be  down  now." 

The  old  father  could  go  only  very  slowly,  and 
Tom  spoke  again: 

'Tis  no  use  in  complaining;  it  comes  to  all 
of  them  in  their  turn." 

Nell,  his  only  sister,  came  in.  She  was  crying 
very  softly,  as  a  child  might  in  a  dream;  she  too 
feared  her  brother's  judgment. 

"Don't  be  hard  on  him,  Tom.  Sure  you 
won't?" 

"Who's  hard  on  him?" 

"Nobody,  I  know,  I  know." 


202      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

"Jack  Casey  said  it  went  right  through;  if  it 
did,  he  mightn't  be  too  bad."  They  had  never 
heard  so  kind  a  voice  coming  from  Tom's  lips, 
Tom,  who  managed  everyone  of  themselves,  as 
well  as  every  detail  of  the  house,  farm  and  shop. 

"But  'twas  a  pity  they  failed,"  he  continued, 
and  they  asked  no  questions;  but,  little  by  little, 
they  got  from  him  what  he  had  been  told  by 
Jack  Casey — that  they  had  tried  to  hold  up  a 
military  motor  lorry  in  which  a  prisoner,  Bat 
Kennedy's  son,  was  being  taken  to  Cork.  That 
they  had  failed,  that  one  of  the  police  had  been 
wounded,  and  that  Ciaran  had  showed  the  stuff 
that  was  in  him. 

"My  God,"  he  said,  "but  they  think  highly  of 
him,  the  boys  do.  When  he's  recovered  we'll 
send  him  out  to  Aunt  Mary's  place  and  give  him 
a  long  holiday,  so  we  will." 


II. 

It  seemed  the  boy  would  never  regain  conscious- 
ness. Dr  Keating  had  come  in  his  trap  and 
dressed  the  wound :  unless  it  grew  septic,  he  hoped 
for  complete  recovery,  only  'twould  take  time; 
besides  they  could  not  tell  what  the  nervous  sys- 
tem had  suffered  from  the  shock.  Very  silently 
the  day  went  by;  and  though  they  did  their  best 


T  H  E    P  R  I  C  E  203 

to  keep  the  story  from  spreading,  many  a  whis- 
pered inquiry  had  to  be  answered,  equally  in  a 
whisper,  over  the  counters  and  over  the  sacks  of 
meal  that  day.  Even  before  the  shops  had 
opened,  lorries  of  military  and  police  had  been 
rushing  through  the  place,  making  for  the  scene 
of  the  fight  at  Templebreeda,  almost  ten  miles  off. 
Three  aeroplanes  had  already  swooped  over  the 
roofs  of  the  houses.  But  up  to  the  present  no  in- 
quiries had  been  made,  and  it  seemed  the  author- 
ities were  on  the  wrong  track. 

In  the  afternoon  Nan  Twohig  slipped  quietly 
into  the  shop;  she  had  brought  some  flowers  from 
her  hillside  garden;  she  had  also  brought  a  little 
phial  of  Lourdes  water. 

She  was  tall  and  very  erect,  yet  lissom  and 
graceful  in  her  movements.  Her  eyes  were  soft 
and  grey,  always  wide  open, and  very  frank  look- 
ing. Her  lips  were  palish,  never  moist,  and  very 
sweet  and  gentle  in  their  unbroken  repose.  She 
brought  a  moment  of  stillness  into  every  group 
she  joined,  just  one  moment,  in  which  their  looks, 
their  words,  their  thoughts  underwent  a  subtle 
chastening.  Yet  no  one  had  ever  known  her  to 
make  judgment  on  any  one  or  to  reprove  or  scorn. 
She  had  no  fear  in  her,  no  yearnings,  it  would 
seem;  no  curiosity.  She  knew  where  she  was  go- 
ing, as  an  infant  knows  its  mother's  breast.  And 
in  some  dim  way,  the  whole  town  knew  it  too;  in 


204      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

their  thoughts  she  was  already  a  Sister  of  Charity. 

In  a  little  house  on  the  hillside  not  far  from  the 
ruined  abbey,  she  lived  with  her  parents,  both  now 
very  old;  they  had  married  late  in  life,  and  she 
was  their  only  child.  Her  father  had  sold  out 
the  hotel — it  was  practically  the  only  hotel  in  the 
place;  and  now  the  three  of  them  lived  in  great 
retirement  in  their  sheltered  nook.  Their  com- 
fort was,  morning  and  evening,  to  frequent  the 
church,  in  which,  at  Sunday  Mass  and  at  the  Sun- 
day Benediction,  Nan  played  the  organ  and  con- 
ducted the  choir. 

A  phial  of  Lourdes  water  was,  indeed,  a  treas- 
ure. 

"I  will  not,  Nan,"  old  Laurence  Mac  Carthy 
said  to  her,  the  two  of  them  standing  above  the 
unconscious  figure  so  limp-looking  in  the  bed.  "I 
will  not;  it  is  more  fitting  that  you  do  it  yourself, 
whatever  you  think  right." 

She  looked  a  little  perplexed.  She  was  star- 
ing fixedly  at  the  young  lad's  face.  It  was  a  good- 
looking  face,  well-shaped,  oval  in  its  outline,  re- 
fined, the  features  sharply  cut.  In  the  stillness, 
lifelessness  of  unconsciousness,  the  outline  of  the 
features  was  everything,  as  in  the  face  of  a  corpse; 
and  one  would  think  that  Nan  Twohig  had  never 
seen  the  young  man  before,  so  intently  were  her 
eyes  set  upon  him. 


THE    PRICE  205 

"Very  well,"  she  said,  and  she  took  the  phial 
of  blessed  water  and  made  the  Sign  of  the  Cross 
upon  the  features,  touching  his  brow,  his  lips,  with 
the  water.  And  then  the  father  lifted  very  gently 
the  bed-clothes  from  the  shoulder  and  Nan  again 
made  the  Sign  of  the  Cross  on  the  dressings. 
That  done,  she  dropped  on  her  knees,  and  bent  her 
head  in  prayer.  Her  face  and  that  of  the  young 
man  were  very  close  together:  he  was  lying  on  his 
right  side  along  the  edge  of  the  bed.  The  father 
stood  above  her.  She  felt  his  hand  touch  her  on 
the  shoulder;  she  opened  her  eyes,  and  she  saw 
that  Ciaran,  too,  had  opened  his  eyes,  was  look- 
ing at  her  gravely;  suddenly  she  saw  him  smile 
to  recognise  her,  but  it  did  not  last  more  than  a 
few  moments.  Sudden  fear,  pain,  made  his  fea- 
tures wince;  his  gaze  sharpened  a  moment,  became 
dark  and  full  of  distress;  and  he  lapsed  again 
into  unconsciousness — before  a  word  had  been 
spoken  to  him.  She  rose  up  trembling,  trying  to 
master  herself.  Colour  had  come  up  into  her 
pale  cheeks,  and  her  fingers  stretched  to  support 
herself  on  the  low  table  that  stood  near  the  bed. 

The  old  man  took  no  notice  of  her;  it  was  on 
his  son's  face  that  his  eyes  were  set. 

"Nan,"    he    whispered,    "did   you    see    that? 
Wouldn't  you  say  that  would  be  a  good  sign?" 

"Oh,  yes,"  she  could  hardly  speak;  her  voice 


206      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

sounded  hard  and  rough  to  her.  "Oh,  yes,  he'll 
come  out  of  it,  little  by  little.  .  .  .  I'll  leave  you 
this." 

She  went  away,  hushed  and  wondering. 


Ill 

That  sudden  change  that  had  come  so  swiftly 
over  the  smiling  eyes,  she  carried  with  her:  it  re- 
newed itself  in  her  vision  again  and  again.  She 
went  swiftly  and  silently  through  the  agitated  peo- 
ple. That  there  was  a  region  of  pain,  of  fear, 
that  she  had  never  realised,  hovered  among  her 
thoughts;  of  all  her  thoughts  that  chiefly  she 
would  put  away  from  her  by  her  swift  hurrying; 
for  it  questioned  her,  questioned  her  prudence  and 
her  own  courage.  It  now  seemed  to  her  so  cal- 
lous to  have  given  utterance  to  heroic  thoughts 
without  making  any  effort  to  realise  the  suffer- 
ing that  such  thoughts  may  bring  in  their 
train ! 

Her  attitude  all  along  in  the  ever-multiplying 
troubles  that  were  being  poured  out  on  her  peo- 
ple, on  her  country,  had  surprised  even  those  who 
best  knew  her.  They  had  known  her  for  a  nun- 
like  spirit,  moving  in  her  own  ways,  in  ways  that 
were  not  the  world's.  There  were  thousands  like 


THE    PRICE  207 

her  in  Ireland,  gentle  souls  whose  real  country 
was  the  cloister,  whom  only  the  duties  of  life  kept 
still  in  the  world.  That  such  a  soul  should  take 
unflinching  stand  by  the  side  of  the  young  men, 
was  scarcely  to  be  understood.  The  old  priest 
had  time  and  again  spoken  of  them  as  hotheads, 
had  threatened  the  country  with  famine  if  they 
persevered  in  their  wild  courses,  had  warned  the 
farmers  and  the  shopkeepers  to  look  after  their 
sons,  if  they  did  not  want  to  see  their  bank  bal- 
ances come  tumbling  down.  It  was  little  use  for 
him:  the  young  men  went  on  with  their  drilling, 
with  their  raiding  for  arms,  with  their  attacks  on 
police  barracks,  on  the  mails,  on  patrols  of  mili- 
tary and  police :  and  in  all  that  they  did  Nan  Two- 
hig  justified  them.  This,  however,  she  did  pri- 
vately; in  simple  words  she  would  give  her 
opinion — not  knowing  that  her  words  would  run 
from  lip  to  lip,  would  temper  the  opinions  of  the 
worldly-wise  and  strengthen  further  the  resolve 
of  the  young  men  never  to  give  in.  In  aloofness, 
in  repose,  her  life  flowed  on  unchanged.  Once 
only  did  she  do  a  thing  that  surprised  herself  and 
astonished  the  town.  It  was  the  first  Sunday  in 
August,  and  the  little  church  was  crowded  to  the 
door.  In  the  middle  of  the  Mass,  the  old  priest, 
who  had  never  made  even  one  mistake  in  all  the 
dragging  years  of  his  long  life,  had  asked  for  the 


208      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

customary  prayers  for  the  dead,  had  begun  to  read 
out  the  list  of  names : — 

"James  O'Donovan,  of  Lyrenagreine. 
"Thomas  O'Rourke,  of  Lismoran. 
"John  Dempsey,  of  Tobberinglas " 

and  there  suddenly  he  paused,  puzzling  out,  it 
was  evident,  the  next  name  on  the  list.  After  a 
moment  he  began  to  read  on  again,  there  were 
but  three  other  names,  and  had  finished  them, 
had  raised  his  head  and  was  looking  straight 
down  the  church  through  his  spectacles,  when 
Nan  Twohig's  voice  spoke  out  quite  clearly  from 
the  little  organ  gallery: — 

"And  for  the  soul  of  Roger  Casement,  whose 
anniversary  occurs  about  this  time." 

Very  few  looked  around  from  the  altar, 
scarcely  one;  besides,  their  eyes  were  all  on  the 
priest,  who  stood  still  on  the  altar  steps  facing 
down  the  church.  They  could  see  his  struggle  to 
steady  his  voice  to  finish  the  prayers  for  the  dead: 
"May  their  souls  and  the  souls  of  all  the  faithful 
departed,  through  the  mercy  of  God,  rest  in 
peace.  Amen."  Then  he  turned  again  to  the 
altar,  and  resumed  the  whisper  of  the  Mass  in  ? 
silence  that  seemed  to  be  afraid  of  itself. 

Yes,  that  action  on  her  part  did  surprise  her- 
self, yet  not  so  much  as  one  would  think;  she  was 
quite  sure  that  she  had  done  nothing  wrong. 


THEPRICE  209 

Because  it  was  Nan  Twohig  that  had  done  that 
extraordinary  thing,  the  people  discussed  it  only 
in  whispers  and  never  discussed  it  with  the  Canon 
himself;  neither  did  he  invite  discussion  on  it. 
Silence  was  the  better  thing,  whether  she  had  done 
right  or  wrong.  But  one  old  man  did  say:  "Peo- 
ple that  walk  that  way,  with  their  heads  up,  and 
their  eyes  looking  straight  before  them,  you  can 
never  tell  what  it  is  they'll  stop  at."  But  one 
thing  embarrassed  the  gentle  soul:  she  noticed  for 
the  first  time  that  the  Volunteers,  young  men, 
many  of  them,  whose  names  she  had  never  heard, 
would  salute  her  and  glance  shyly  at  her  with 
grateful  eyes  as  she  passed  on.  But  it  was 
now  more  than  a  month  since  that  Sunday  in 
August. 

All  the  day  motor  lorries  of  military  and  police 
were  tearing  through  the  long  street  of  the 
town,  sending  up  clouds  of  dust.  The  soldiers 
were  but  boys  for  the  most  part;  they  had  taken 
off  their  helmets  and  their  hair  was  tossed  about 
their  foreheads.  They  carried  their  rifles  with 
the  barrels  resting  on  the  edge  of  the  lorry.  And 
baggage,  clothing,  hair,  faces,  guns,  as  well  as  the 
motor  itself,  were  white  with  the  dust  of  the 
country  roads.  They  laughed  out  boisterously 
or  sang  as  they  passed  through  the  silent  towns. 
In  the  afternoon  an  armoured  car  rattled  swiftly 
through  the  street  and  disappeared  in  a  cloud  of 


210      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

dust.  The  people,  who  had  never  before  seen 
one,  began  to  put  up  their  shutters,  and  to  gather 
in  anxious  groups.  Everybody  had  come  to  know 
of  the  fight  at  Templebreeda,  of  young  Ciaran 
Mac  Carthy's  bravery,  and  of  the  wounded  police- 
man. Reprisals  had  followed  such  happenings 
in  other  places,  and  that  was  what  they  feared. 
News  arrived  that  Templebreeda  had  been  sur- 
rounded by  a  cordon  of  troops,  that  the  houses 
were  being  searched  and  that  many  arrests  had 
been  made.  In  one  case  the  three  sons  had  been 
swept  off,  in  another  the  father  and  the  only  boy. 
Some  small  arms,  some  scraps  of  ammunition, 
some  Sinn  Fein  literature,  some  books  or  papers 
in  the  Irish  language  had  been  found  in  their 
houses,  and  explanations  were  neither  asked  nor 
offered. 

Nan  had  just  heard  the  news  of  the  arrests 
when  the  motor  lorries  swept  again  at  a  terrific 
rate  through  the  street:  they  were  returning. 
The  second  and  third  carried  the  prisoners  that 
had  been  made.  Young  men,  some  indeed  only 
boys  in  their  teens,  they  stood  upright,  hand- 
cuffed one  to  another,  in  a  ring  of  steel.  They 
were  dressed  in  their  working  clothes.  They 
waved  their  caps,  hurrahed  and  sang  whenever 
they  passed  through  a  little  hamlet  or  village; 
and  the  ring  of  soldiers  about  them  stood  erect 
and  very  silent.  But  the  older  men  among  the 


THE    PRICE  211 

prisoners  were  depressed  and  awkward-looking: 
they  had  not  yet  had  time  to  fling  themselves  on 
the  reckless  heroic  plane  where  the  young  men 
had  been  dwelling  for  months  and  years. 

Nan's  heart  had  been  opened  that  morning, 
and  she  saw  it  all  with  a  sense  of  warm,  piteous 
tears.  She  saw  how  cowed  the  townspeople 
were;  as  the  prisoners  passed  only  an  odd  one  of 
the  people  would  raise  a  hand  or  cap.  They 
had  not  the  heart.  At  that  time  the  jails  were 
crammed  with  prisoners,  and  some  of  them  were 
on  the  point  of  death  from  hunger-striking,  while 
day  by  day  others  of  them  were  drifting  home  to 
their  people,  wrecked  in  body  and  sometimes  in 
mind. 

No  sooner  had  they  all  swept  by,  leaving  the 
street  full  of  whirling  clouds  of  dust,  than  the 
children  of  the  place  formed  into  ranks  and 
marched  around  the  streets  shouting  out  their 
Republican  songs  at  the  top  of  their  voices.  Nan 
felt  thankful  for  the  heartiness  of  their  singing: 
she  was  repeating  the  words  of  their  songs  for 
her  own  comforting: — 

"No  more  our  ancient  sireland 
Shall  shelter  the  despot  or  the  slave." 

All  this  that  she  had  seen,  the  rushing  motors, 
the  young  prisoners,  the  anxious  people,  whisper- 
ing, and  fearful  of  what  the  night  or  the  next 


212      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

day  would  bring  upon  themselves,  Nan  carried  to 
bed  with  her  that  night.  She  could  not  sleep  for 
it;  and  scraps  of  the  boys'  songs  would  ring 
through  her  brain;  and  then  the  young  flesh  of 
Ciaran  Mac  Carthy,  quivering  with  agony,  his 
eyes  darkening  with  it, — she  would  see  his  head 
laid  sideways  and  quite  helpless  on  the  white  pil- 
low. And  she  was  not  satisfied  with  her  own 
part  in  all  this,  though  she  did  not  even  ask  her- 
self if  she  could  have  done  otherwise. 


IV 

And  so  she  was  sitting  up  in  her  bed,  listening, 
one  would  think,  from  the  expression  of  her  face. 
She  could  see  the  tree-tops  dark  against  the  clear 
sky,  and  occasionally  a  bird  fluttered  quite  close  to 
her  window,  as  if  it  were  pulling  at  the  leaves. 
She  grew  cold,  and  with  a  smothered  sigh  lay 
down,  drawing  the  clothes  warmly  about  her. 
Presently  she  raised  her  head:  she  thought  she 
heard  someone  climbing  over  the  wall  of  her  gar- 
den, thought  she  heard  a  leap  down  on  the  grass. 
She  kept  quite  still,  terrified.  Dreadful  things 
had  been  done,  done  on  both  sides,  during  the 
past  twelve  months,  and  even  to  the  hearts  of 
the  Volunteers  themselves,  daring  and  courageous 
as  they  were,  a  peremptory  knocking  at  the  door 


THE    PRICE  213 

in  the  dead  of  night  would  send  coldness  and 
fear.  For  such  a  knocking  she  felt  herself  wait- 
ing, though  she  had  no  idea  what  would  happen 
to  herself,  having  heard  it!  She  heard  a  stir- 
ring and  then  a  low  whistle.  She  started  vio- 
lently. "Christ  help  me,  Christ  protect  me," 
*hc  was  praying.  The  whistle  was  repeated.  If 
it  were  a  signal  to  others !  She  was  half-way 
out  the  bed,  she  would  go  into  her  mother's 
room,  when  she  heard  whistled  very  soft  and  low, 
the  first  notes  of  "Wrap  the  Green  Flag  Round 
Me,  Boys" — a  song  that  had  become  burdened 
with  the  most  tragic  associations.  Her  heart 
opened;  she  felt  reassured;  and  her  thoughts 
thanked  him,  whoever  it  was,  for  having  struck  on 
such  a  signal  at  the  very  moment  when  terror 
was  chilling  her  through  and  through.  She  liked 
the  song:  like  everyone  else  she  had  often  found 
it  singing  in  her  brain,  as  if  it  would  never  end; 
like  an  old  friend  it  came  to  her  now. 

She  crept  to  the  window  and  opened  it.  A 
voice  whispered  up : — 

"Is  that  Miss  Twohig?" 

"Yes;  what  is  it  you  want?" 

"No  one  can  hear  us?" 

"No;  you're  Michael  Keohane?" 

"Yes,  I  am.  Tell  me,  would  it  be  possible 
for  us  to  bring  Ciaran  Mac  Carthy  up  here. 
Could  you  keep  him  for  some  time?" 


214      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

"Up  here!  Now?"  She  could  not  help  her 
surprise. 

"Yes.  We  think  it  best.  His  house  will 
surely  be  searched  to-morrow;  he's  well  known  to 
them.  He'd  be  safe  here.  And  the  doctor 
wouldn't  allow  us  to  take  him  any  distance — with- 
out a  proper  ambulance." 

"But  now,  you  said?" 

"  'Twould  be  best.  We  must  keep  it  se- 
cret from  the  people  in  the  town.  Please  let 
us." 

"Oh!  don't  think  I'm  against  it.  We'd  do 
more  than  that  for  Ciaran,  for  any  of  you." 

"I  know  that;  we  call  you  our  best  recruiting 
sergeant!" 

She  heard  him  laugh;  but  all  the  anxiety  of  the 
long  day  swept  back  on  her  at  his  words.  He 
spoke  again: — 

"Your  people  won't  be  against  it?" 

"They're  all  right;  I'll  answer  for  them." 

"Could  you  have  a  place  ready  in  an  hour's 
time?" 

"Yes,  certainly,  in  less." 

When  he  had  gone,  she  dressed  in  haste  and 
went  to  her  mother's  room.  Then  she  was  run- 
ning up  stairs  and  down  stairs  and  from  room  to 
room,  her  arms  full  of  bundles  of  white  linen. 
She  was  full  of  quiet  excitement,  and  indeed  full 
of  a  secret  joy,  a  secret  fire  she  could  not  quench. 


THE    PRICE  215 

Her  house  was  honoured;  she  herself  was 
honoured;  it  did  not  matter  what  happened  next. 
They  might  come  and  break  in  the  panels  of  the 
door — which  had  become  their  usual  way  of  enter- 
ing houses — or  leap  in  through  the  windows  on 
top  of  them;  and  no  resistance  coultl  be  made; 
but  it  did  not  matter;  she  would  have  suffered 
with  the  rest,  and  so  could  take  her  place  without 
misgivings  in  the  Ireland  that  was  being  born. 
And  though  she  would  have  taken  in  any  wounded 
Volunteer  whatever,  she  was  glad  it  was  Ciaran 
Mac  Carthy  that  she  was  asked  to  take  in.  For 
a  moment  she  had  forgotten  all  the  anxious 
thoughts  that  were  with  her  the  length  of  that 
long  day;  now  she  could  chirp  like  a  bird. 

In  less  than  an  hour  he  was  lying  there  beneath 
her  eyes.  He  regained  consciousness;  and  began 
to  speak  to  her  with  great  shyness.  He  was 
overjoyed  at  the  way  Tom  had  taken  this  upset. 
He  always  knew  he  was  good  at  heart,  but  he 
had  great  responsibilities,  and  responsibilities 
harden  a  man;  look  at  Michael  Keohane.  And 
then  she  chatted  to  him  of  what  Michael  had 
said  of  himself,  of  his  courage — and  he  laughed 
gently,  and  was  glad  to  have  his  captain  think  so 
well  of  him.  But  she  would  not  let  him  talk. 
He  must  keep  quiet.  And  quietly  he  shut  his 
eyes  and  dozed  off  to  sleep.  Soon  afterwards 
his  sister,  Nell,  came  into  the  room  and  found 


2l6      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

her  there,  sitting  quietly,  staring  straight  in  front 
of  her,  full  of  wonder.  A  warmth  was  in  her 
heart.  She  was  remembering  the  richness  of 
Ciaran's  hazel  eyes,  the  frank,  boyish  gladness  in 
them  when  he  smiled. 


When  our  heart  opens  at  all,  it  opens  to  the 
cold  winds  as  well  as  to  the  kindly  sun.  As  soon 
as  Nan  entered  her  own  room,  leaving  Nell  to 
keep  watch  by  Ciaran's  side  until  the  morning, 
which  was  the  arrangement  they  had  made,  new 
fears  swept  down  upon  her.  She  tried  to  put 
them  away;  everything  had  not  gone  on  too  well, 
and  even  if  it  had,  well,  it  was  God's  will.  And 
his  wound  had  not  taken  cold  in  the  journey 
through  the  hillside  fields  beneath  the  cold  stars. 
And  he  would  not  be  arrested  ...  It  was  true 
the  night  was  chilly,  she  had  felt  it  herself,  sitting 
up  in  bed;  and  certainly  it  was  colder  now,  as  was 
only  natural.  If  he  were  arrested  he  would  go 
on  hunger-strike  rather  than  be  classed  among  the 
criminals  and  treated  as  one.  And  if  he  did! 
She  went  from  change  to  change.  And  behind 
all  her  questionings  was  this  thought:  that  what- 
ever had  happened,  whatever  was  happening  (his 
wound  might  be  turning  poisonous  at  that  very 


THE    PRICE  217 

moment)  whatever  would  happen — she  was  bear- 
ing no  part  in  it.  She  was  herself — lived  in  an- 
other world — callous  and  impotent. 

Suddenly  she  began  to  reclothe  herself,  snatch- 
ing up  her  garments  quickly  and  buttoning  them 
with  quick,  deft  fingers.  The  pious  little  ejacu- 
lations that  she  had  been  whispering  to  herself, 
almost  mechanically,  she  whispered  no  longer. 
But  her  own  erectness  had  returned  to  her.  She 
had  resumed  herself. 

In  Balliniskey  there  is  a  standing  devotion  to 
their  patron  saint,  to  St.  Ciaran.  They  make 
rounds  at  the  ruined  abbey  on  the  hillside,  just 
above  the  town;  and  many  a  boy  in  the  streets 
of  the  little  place  answers  to  the  old  saint's  name. 
Nan  shared  in  this  devotion;  and  in  those  years 
of  national  trouble  had  often  found  great  con- 
solation in  praying  at  the  holy  well  in  the  old 
abbey  grounds.  Suddenly,  while  undressing,  the 
thought  of  the  broken  abbey  set  there  above 
their  houses,  looking  down  on  them,  the  thought 
of  the  old  Gaelic  saint,  had  come  to  her  with 
already  an  assurance  of  comfort;  St.  Ciaran,  it 
seemed,  in  some  mysterious  way  could  marry  her, 
could  knit  her  into  the  troubles  that  had  come  yet 
once  again  on  his  own  ancient  land,  that  had  come 
on  his  own  boy,  Ciaran  Mac  Carthy,  for  loving 
the  same  old  land. 

Quickly  she  dressed,  wrapped  a  long,  whitish 


2l8      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

warm  cloak  she  had  about  her,  stepped  swiftly 
yet  silently  down  the  stairs,  opened  the  door, 
and  made  hastily  along  the  little  hillside  path  that 
led  to  the  holy  well;  there  were  but  two  fields  to 
go  through. 

Parallel  to  and  above  the  main  street,  she  was 
walking  along  the  hillside,  swiftly  and  without 
fear;  her  eyes  were  set  straight  before  her:  a 
queen  walking  apart  from,  yet  in  the  gaze  of 
her  people,  would  walk  with  the  self-same  air. 

Below  her,  without  turning  her  head,  she  was 
conscious  of  the  jumbled  roofage  of  the  sleep- 
ing town ;  there  was  the  irregular  line  of  the  street, 
and  beyond,  the  massing  of  the  houses  at  the  hilly 
end  of  the  square.  In  a  window,  as  she  went 
along,  she  caught  the  tiny  gleam  of  a  little  red 
lamp;  she  had  seen  that  little  gleam  before;  she 
knew  it  burned  all  night  long  before  a  statue 
of  the  Sacred  Heart:  to  see  it  was  a  good  omen. 

She  heard  stirrings  in  the  bushes — they  had 
nothing  to  do  with  her;  and  she  felt  the  sting  of 
the  constant  wind,  but  with  that  neither  had  she 
anything  to  do.  She  drew  the  cloak  about  her 
and  made  on. 

Still  tighter  she  drew  it  about  her  whilst  she 
knelt  at  the  well,  for  the  wind  seemed  to  have 
strengthened.  Her  two  hands,  almost  hidden 
within  it,  gripped  its  edges  and  drew  them  closer 
and  closer  about  her  shoulders  as  she  sank  deeper 


THE    PRICE  219 

and  deeper  into  the  heart  of  her  prayer.  Her 
forearms  were  folded,  rigid  and  hard,  pressing 
against  her  breast.  Her  head  was  bent  down 
earnestly,  so  much  so  that  the  bone  of  her  chin 
seemed  welded  into  the  wrist  bone  of  her  left 
hand.  She  had  become  one  mass,  without  limbs 
it  seemed,  and  that  mass  was  leant,  almost  fiercely, 
against  the  grey  and  twisted  trunk  of  a  little 
elder  tree  that  the  wind  off  the  hillside  had  bent 
away  from  the  well.  And  so  she  prayed,  without 
a  movement  of  the  lips,  perhaps  without  a  word. 
After  some  time  a  sound  from  far  away  dis- 
turbed her:  it  was  like  a  stronger  wind  than  this 
that  was  on  her  brow.  She  put  it  away  from  her, 
it  was  a  distraction.  But  it  was  still  strength- 
ening, and  a  throbbing  had  come  into  it.  The 
throbbing  was  now  imparted  to  the  whole  place,  to 
her  own  framework  of  flesh  and  bone.  She 
wondered  at  it;  and  involuntarily  glanced  aside, 
swiftly,  when  a  light  flashed  up  in  a  back  window. 
It  did  not  last  more  than  a  second:  it  was  sud- 
denly quenched,  leaving  a  great  gap  of  darkness. 
Then  she  heard  a  window  raised,  she  heard  a 
voice  say,  "Listen,  can't  ye !"  After  a  moment 
she  heard  a  different  voice,  a  frightened  voice, 
cry  out,  "For  God's  sake,  shut  it!"  The  window 
was  shut  down.  Farther  off,  other  voices  were 
speaking  in  low  tones,  as  if  from  window  to 
window.  They,  too,  ceased  after  a  moment. 


220      THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

And  then  the  whole  place  was  certainly  throb- 
bing to  that  ever-increasing,  windy  sound  that 
was  coming  nearer  and  nearer.  She  would  not 
stir:  it  would  pass  away,  pass  away  into  the 
distance. 

Thf  t  throbbing  sound,  furious  with  suppressed 
force,  suddenly  swelled  into  a  roar,  had  come 
round  a  corner,  swelled  into  a  sudden  song,  loud, 
drunken,  triumphant.  She  did  not  know  the 
song.  It  was  roaring  rather  than  song,  only 
there  was  laughter  in  it.  Shots  were  fired.  She 
leaped  to  the  sound.  She  shook  her  head  as  if 
there  were  marbles  in  her  ears.  Ail  the  dogs  in 
the  place  were  howling  or  yapping.  More  shots 
were  fired,  again,  again;  and  glass  began  to  fall 
down  on  the  flags.  The  throbbing  was  less  now; 
and  the  song  was  broken  into  odd  phrases  and 
shouts;  but  the  dogs  were  still  howling  or  snap- 
ping viciously.  Orders  were  shouted  out — loudly, 
fiercely.  She  could  not  stir.  She  had  no 
thought — no  more  than  a  person  has  while  he  is 
falling  from  a  height  to  his  death.  Suddenly 
there  was  wild  cheering  and  a  great  glare  shot 
up,  lit  up  everything  in  so  bright  a  flash  that  she 
could  see  nothing  for  it.  But  the  flash  of  it 
died  down  to  one  spot:  there  below  her  in  the 
street  she  could  see  great  tongues  of  flames  com- 
ing out  through  the  broken  glass  of  Kelly's  shop, 
coming  fiercely  out  and  licking  the  front  of  the 


THE    PRICE  221 

house.  She  lost  control  of  her  limbs  to  under- 
stand the  meaning  of  it,  to  understand  what  was 
come  to  her  little  town.  She  might  have  stood 
up,  or  fallen  down,  or  leaped  up  on  the  steps  of 
the  stone  cross.  She  was  all  eyes,  glaring  into  that 
corner  of  flame — the  rest  of  the  town  had 
not  shown  a  sign  of  life:  not  a  window  had  been 
raised,  not  a  lamp  lit!  Against  the  flames,  al- 
most in  under  them,  she  could  see  human  figures 
running  swiftly  from  place  to  place;  they  bent 
down  as  they  ran,  and  orders  pursued  them. 
Now  women's  voices  burst  out,  one  of  them  wail- 
ing out  the  Holy  Name  without  ceasing.  But 
the  little  figures  that  were  tending  the  flames  only 
ra'n  the  more  swiftly  from  place  to  place.  She 
had  seen  pictures  like  it — devils  trying  to  burn 
a  saint  of  God:  they  were  armed  with  long  fork- 
like  implements.  Her  eyes  fell  on  one  of  the 
figures :  his  back  was  to  the  flames,  he  was  star- 
ing straight  up  at  her;  he  grabbed  another  by  the 
shoulder :  two  of  them,  side  by  side,  were  staring 
up  at  her,  and  she  could  not  move.  A  little 
crowd  of  them  gathered  then  together;  one  of 
them  cried  out,  and  another  struck  him  on  the 
mouth;  that  she  saw  quite  plainly.  Then  they 
ran,  all  in  the  one  direction,  the  man  who  was 
struck  running  last. 

"But  she  became  a  nun  all  the  same." 


222       THE    HOUNDS    OF    BANBA 

<     "She  always  intended  to  become  a  nun." 

"But  she  should  have  waited  till  her  parents 
died." 

"Well,  she  didn't." 

"And  they  saw  her  from  the  street." 

"More  than  they  saw  her.  She  had  climbed 
the  steps  of  the  cross,  and  stood  by  its  side,  with 
her  right  hand  stretched  out,  stiff;  and  the  light 
played  up  on  her;  and  petrol  makes  a  strong 
light.  They  saw  her  hand  move.  They  fled. 
On  the  steps  she  was  found." 

"She  saved  Balliniskey.  Look  at  what  they 
were  after  doing  in  Lismoran." 

"She  did;  and  perhaps  that  is  why  she  did  not 
wait  till  her  parents  died  before  becoming  a  nun." 

"  'Twas  a  sort  of  miracle.  But  then  there's 
Ciaran  Mac  Carthy." 

"Yes,  indeed." 

"And  there's  Ireland,  too." 

"And  this  is  the  end  of  all,  that  all  miracles  are 
the  fruit  of  love." 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A     000  038  922 


